Luther University Bounty Hunters
by Biyanabee
Summary: College AU. Garfield is having trouble paying off his debt and still having money for fun when he reads a flyer to catch a local criminal. As he pairs up with Richard, Raven, Kory, and Victor, they form a team of bounty hunters to catch criminals around campus. When women begin to go missing, they must solve the case and realize the villain is closer to home before it is too late.
1. Prologue

**Prologue**

* * *

Richard looked on at Jinx and Wally in pure annoyance as they smooched in front of him after sharing a banana split dessert together at their little round table before looking at the plain tasting churro he held in his hand dejectedly. Wally pulled away from his girlfriend and smiled at her in admiration as he ran his hand through the bright pink locks of her hair.

"How does your hair look so healthy even though you dyed it? Wow.." He questioned her. She grinned back in response.

"'Cause I'm Indian. It's also the first time I've dyed my hair."

"You look beautiful," Wally remarked before going back in to snog with her. Snogging is somewhat of a gross term to use for making out with someone but Richard thought the term suited how he felt about it best. Of course, Richard knew if he agreed to go out to the carnival with them that he'd definitely be the third wheel, and by that fact only, he preferred to not say anything about their obnoxious PDA, but to suck it up and take another bite of his churro. Though when he could not take anymore unwanted ASMR from their make out session he opted to make conversation.

"So… why do they call you Jinx anyway?" Richard has only just met the girl about forty minutes from the present time and her boyfriend about a day ago when they moved into a dorm together and became official freshmen roommates.

"She brings bad luck," Wally answered for her. "If you see a ladder, she's under it. If you hear a mirror break, it was her fault. She's even opened umbrellas at my house pretending to be Mary Poppins. But the bad luck never happens to her, just people around her. So I call this marvelous woman, Jinx." Jinx nodded in agreement.

"It's sort of a sick joke. One time a black cat walked across the sidewalk in front of me and a few minutes later this guy walking slipped and broke his arm in the same place it happened." Richard only raised his eyebrows in response as both Wally and Jinx turned the conversation to each other only and excluded him out of it.

"You guys want to go on the Ferris wheel?" Richard asked in an attempt to be apart of the group once more. The couple looked at the ride in question and shook their heads.

"Nah. Long line."

"Alright. Well I'm gonna go on it, and I'll come back later, just text me if you go anywhere," Richard got up with his churro. He was not disappointed in their answer but actually somewhat relieved as even though he would have to wait in a somewhat long line, he didn't have to feel like a third wheel anymore.

He didn't expect welcome week to be completely mind blowing and for new friends to just flock to him as he joined more group chats but also it was incredibly underwhelming as he had not made any new friends yet. Sure, Wally's cool, but he seemed more focused on hanging out with his girlfriend for the time being. But again, it is the first event the university is throwing to kick off the new year. He had plenty of time to be social. Just like he had plenty of time to wait in line for the Ferris wheel. By the time he arrived at the front gates, it had been about thirty minutes, a time that was actually shortened largely to the couples who left the line in favor of something shorter. When it was his time to finally go on, he sat in his seat as he waited for the ride operator to finish letting people in.

"Are you sitting with anyone?" The operator questioned him waiting expectedly for an answer. Unfortunately she had caught Richard off guard as he'd been looking off into the distance and could not formulate a response in the desired time allotted so she turned her attention to the crowd. "IS ANYONE RIDING ALONE? WE HAVE ONE SEAT LEFT!" She shouted so that all could hear. Richard fumbled to reject the idea of sitting next to a stranger on a slow Ferris wheel when a hand shot up from the crowd.

"I AM ALONE!" A girl answered hurriedly before anyone else and the operator invited her onto the platform in response. Richard's eyes widened as the operator turned to address him.

"She's going to sit with you. Is that okay?" His mouth was opened but only jumbled words came out when he attempted to answer and his eyes darted back and forth between the girl and the operator. The operator once again did not wait long enough for him to give an articulate response and the next thing she was doing was checking that the girl and Richard were both properly secured into their seats before moving onto someone else.

Richard watched on as the girl adjusted her position in her seat, oblivious to his staring. She was very tall, Richard guessed at least six feet, maybe a bit taller than him. She had a very deep tan skin tone and bright green eyes. She also was a redhead and had a head full of long curly ringlets that spilled over her shoulder and reached the seat bar that acted somewhat as a metal seatbelt for the both of them. A very odd combination, but the most beautiful he has ever seen. After she was adjusted, she turned to smile at her new ride partner.

"Hello." She addressed him simply.

"Hey." He was pretty sure he was blushing.

"My name is Kory."

"Richard."

"Are you a freshmen?" She inquired.

"Yeah. You?"

"Yes. First year for me. What is your major?"

"Criminal Justice and business." Richard did not even notice that the ride had started.

"I am also studying the business."

"Are you an exchange student?" He blurted out and immediately regretted it. What a stupid thing to ask, not to mention weird. If he was not red before, he was now. Instead, Kory smiled warm heartedly.

"Yes. Sorry, my English is not very good. I'm North African."

"Your English is great. I wish I was bilingual." She smiled sweetly and turned to look out at the entirety of the carnival as their cart had reached the top of the Ferris wheel.

"This is a very nice place. Americans are as friendly as I was told."

"Have you made any friends here?"

"My roommate is polite. But she likes to be alone, I sense."

"Is that why you're here alone?" Her smile dampened slightly as she turned back to answer his question.

"Yes." Richard stayed silent for a moment, realizing that maybe that wasn't the best question to ask.

"It's okay. I came here with two other people but I might as well have come alone because I became the third wheel." He quipped.

"What is the third wheel?"

"It's when three people are hanging out but what really is happening is that two people are hanging out with each other and ignoring the third person so that the third is sort of just tagging along for no reason."

"Oh!" Kory grinned and chuckled. "That has happened to me before. Where are your two others?" Richard pointed to the table he'd previously been sitting at where the couple was now sharing a basket of nacho cheese fries.

"I like her pink hair. Is the boy your roommate?"

"Yeah. His name is Wally. I think he's a track athlete, but I forgot his major."

"He has red hair like me. Do you like your roommate, Wally?"

"Yeah, he's cool. I hope his girlfriend doesn't stay at our dorm all the time though. It's a very small space."

"Truly!" Kory grinned and positioned her body towards him. "I do think my roommate would have liked a private room better!"

"Do you like your roommate? Do you think she will stay in your dorm a lot?"

" I do," Kory chose her words carefully. "But we are different. She is, I believe it is called, the goth? She has the goth taste. But she does not wear all black and such, but I notice she likes the style. She likes to be alone, but she is already very busy. She has two jobs, I think. So she has no time to stay in the dorm all the time, but she does not go out." Richard nodded in understanding. "I am very...fashion, girlish. I like to go out and do girl things. I invited her to come with me tonight, but she had to work, she said."

"As long as she's not too horrible, you'll be fine."

"Oh no! She is very lovely despite all that. I thought she was mean but she is very nice! We went to the cafeteria together earlier and when they tried to overcharge me on my food, she yelled at them for me!"

Robin raised his eyebrow once again in amusement. Kory shrugged her shoulders.

"I am sure she will warm up to me soon," Kory reassured him. By then, they had reached the end of the ride, back at the bottom. They both exchanged polite smiles as they shuffled to get out of their seats once the metal bar was unlocked and followed each other down the ramp and onto the dry grass of the fairgrounds.

"Which ride are you going on next?" He asked, taking in her full height now that she was next to him. She was about two inches taller. She tucked her hands into the pockets of her denim shorts.

"I am not sure. What would you like to ride?" Richard could not keep himself from smiling as he realized she wanted to keep hanging out with him.

"Have you ridden the comet?"

"Which one is that?"

"It's over there." He pointed to a ride right of the ferris wheel. "It's really fun, you stand against the walls and it spins really fast so that you can sit or lay on the wall without falling. Though, you shouldn't ride it if you have a weak stomach."

"I do not have a weak stomach. Would you like to ride it with me?" She offered shyly.

"Yes." Maybe Richard had managed to make a friend after all.

XxX

An hour and a half later, they were both walking back to their dorms. It was discovered between the both of them, they lived in the same dorm, although different floors, where Kory lived on the fourth floor and Richard resided on the seventh floor. They had ridden almost every ride in the carnival and even had gotten ice cream at an ice cream shop down the street from campus, which they were now enjoying as they laughed along in high spirits after such an unexpectedly good night. Richard found Kory to be a very positive person, which was greatly needed as he had been feeling somewhat pessimistic lately since move-in. Her laugh was contagious and he was pretty much obsessed with watching her curls bounce as she began to feel more comfortable around him and therefore not so stiff. Kory also found him to be delightful to be around, he was very relaxed. He also told her a lot about what it was like to live in the area, as he is from there. They had lots of joyous conversation, and even more fun on rides like the comet, and what a fond memory that will be, to be able to lay upside down against a wall and not fall down! She was almost glad that her roommate, a girl named Raven, did not attend the carnival with her because then she would not have met Richard.

"What made you study business anyway?" They were both recovering from laughter and proceeded with their conversation beforehand as they ride the elevator to the fourth floor.

"It is very important that I learn this for my future." She beamed at him.

"Well, yeah, but that could be said for any major,"

"It's a secret." She whispered to him and smiled down at her Oreo milkshake, stirring it lightly.

"Oooo, a girl of mystery." She began to chuckle but quickly recomposed herself to maintain mysteriousness as the elevator doors to her floor opened to welcome her.

"Tonight was fun. I thank you, Richard, for keeping me the company."

"Same could be said for you," He smiled dumbly at her.

"Goodnight," She smiled at him once again before stepping off and walking away, sipping her milkshake. Richard remained in the elevator, smiling at the now closed doors, feeling very happy as to what the night became. It took him a full minute to realize that he had forgotten to ask for her number.


	2. Chapter 1

_Make sure you go to the right class XD_

Garfield and Victor had been texting each other all morning, as today was the first day of classes. Garfield had Calculus with Professor Lockwood at 9:40 in the morning, but he opted to show up ten minutes early as he knew it'd be a huge lecture hall. He thought it odd and somewhat depressing to see the drone of college students, with heavy backpacks burdening their backs, make their way from their dorms to the main campus across the street, but luckily Victor had given him a bunch of advice now that he was starting college,which was just another benefit of having a best friend who graduated two years earlier than he did.

_College is all about making connections. Work smart, not hard._

_Don't buy your books until the first week of classes so you know for sure which you need to buy. Unless you're using the pell book deferment._

_Chegg will SAVE your life._

_Never underestimate the power of a student discount._

All of Victor's advice rang throughout his head as he read his text messages over and over from his phone. Garfield considered himself to be somewhat of a good student, at least mustering enough to pass a class. However he wanted to do better these years, especially now as his major as of that point is undecided, but luckily everyone's first year is basically just pre-requisite classes, so he was okay. It was just important that he not fuck up so that when he did decide on a major, he can switch easily to it. Because of this, he had read Professor Lockwood's syllabus several times and also had taken Victor's old calculus notes. Garfield is capable of doing well if he applies himself- that's how he learned to code in several languages- and that's exactly what he planned on doing this year.

The lecture hall was already about half full when he stepped through the double doors. The hall was bumbling with nervous freshmen preparing to take in every word from the lecturer with their new notebooks and pristine pens and laptops. Garfield took a seat in the fifth row near the door, taking a seat next to one of the only people not dressed in brand new clothes ordered from ASOS, a man of simplicity, dressed in red joggers and a matching shirt. Actually, not a man of simplicity, as Garfield concluded while peeking at the man sitting next to him, but a man of exhaustion. His black hair was quite disheveled, and he had on red Nike slides, and looked as if he was going to fall asleep right then and there as he rested his chin on the palm of his head, rubbing his eyes every second or so. The fact of the matter is that Richard had stayed up all night attempting to sleep in the common room of his floor because his considerate roommate had kicked him out for the time being, as he invited his girlfriend over. Richard only got back inside his dorm at six in the morning and managed to get about two hours of sleep before he woke up in order to sling on some loungewear to make it to math class and have breakfast beforehand. Coming to class was decision based on the fact that it was the first day, he did not expect to actually take notes due to being sleep-deprived and so he was also way too tired to even confront Wally for having him sleep on the shitty couch, where, it was quite cold.

Garfield, already prepared for the worst of the semester, offered him a shot of an energy drink.

"No thanks, I'm good," Richard muttered quietly.

"I'm Garfield," He cheerily introduced himself.

"Richard."

"You look familiar." No worse statement could make Richard's heart thump, which was a shock that was not needed to his muddled brain. With his eyes still heavy from sleep, he managed to calmly turn his head and raise his eyebrow inquisitively to young man.

"How so?"

"I'm not sure where." Garfield thought aloud.

"Well I have a very generic face so," Richard chuckled nervously. Luckily Garfield accepted his poor performance at lying and dismissed the subject to focus on their cla-

"You're the _WAYNE-_" Garfield excitedly whispered before covering his mouth in pure shock. There was a brief moment where time seemed to stop and it was nothing but Richard staring at Garfield with wide bright blue eyes and Garfield staring at him with equal energy with his great green eyes.

"Be. Quiet." He could hear his heart beating through his ears. A stern warning from Richard was no match for Garfield's brief moment of being star struck and didn't protect Richard from the barrage of hushed questions that spilled out of Garfield's mouth. Richard's hope to go unnoticed had fallen as fast as his current mood at this point, even though Garfield, so far, was the only person too actually recognize exactly who he was. "Shhhhushhhh," He pleaded. It seemed to click a note in Garfield's head as he immediately stopped and nodded with multiple hand motions indicating a restart.

"You're right, sorry. You probably don't want-"

"Yeah." They both nodded in agreement and Richard hoped they were on the same page so that he could relax. And so finally they focused on the lecture in front of them, starting with the definition of a limit. However, Garfield could not stop his knee from bouncing and made it very apparent to Richard that he still had some questions about him being the son of a billionaire. Garfield managed to wait till the end of class to address him once more, as he did not want to scare him off, but Richard already knew what to expect and what he planned to say to the excited boy.

"What's he like?" Garfield gushed enthusiastically. "Is he-"

"Look," Richard addressed him sharply. "I really don't want that information getting out and if you're a decent human being you'll respect my secret." He made it very clear about his position, in which Garfield bobbed his head in acknowledgement.

"I do! I won't say a thing," Garfield shoved his notebook into his backpack and waited for Richard to do the same. "Do you mind if we keep in contact? Do you have a Snapchat, or a-"

"Why?" Richard asked tersely. He was already quite embarrassed about the whole ordeal.

"Friends?" The question caught Garfield offhand, but he supposed Richard was entitled to feeling suspicious more than anyone. Richard stared at him, very unamused by his answer. "Okay. Study buddies. Calculus is a weed-out class and I need to be on top of my game. If I happen to ask you for money or ask if we could party in your dad's mansion, feel free to ghost and delete my number." Garfield watched as Richard carefully considered his offer.

"Fine. You **better** not contact me for anything unimportant or I will not only delete your number, but I'll choose a different seat and pretend I never met you." Richard was sure anyways he'd regret giving his number away so freely, but at this point he was just trying to get his classmate to shut up and drop it.

"That's what ghosting means." Richard only exhaled in annoyance. "Nevermind. Scout's honor." A worthy salute to the wealthy student was enough to trust Garfield with his phone number.

XxX

The cafeteria food at Luther University was an odd mix. It was an upgrade from high school food where the pizza tastes like cardboard and a hot dog flops ten feet off the ground when dropped and where the only vegetarian options were dry salads purchased from the dollar store. The food was decent enough to live on, which each of the cafeterias scattered around campus dedicated to a specific brand or type of food to sell. For example, there were two near Garfield's dorm, one catering to more healthy food and had bomb breakfast, while the other had soul food. Students also had the option to eat as much as they wanted instead of being limited to one plate. But also, no cafeteria beat a home-cooked meal or dinner at a fancy enough restaurant. And for that reason, Garfield found himself in the communal kitchen of his dorm cooking a nice vegetarian friendly dinner with a side of tofu.

He was a good enough cook, being a vegetarian teaches people how to get creative with their meals because it was a safe thing to say he couldn't depend on other people to be able to feed him. This statement could not be said by the other girl present in the kitchen along with him.

Garfield watched in a mix between curiosity and confusion as the red-haired Amazon looking student clambered to stir between two pots of...stuff, and adjusted the heat between the two stove burners she was using every minute. This routine continued for five minutes before Garfield felt as if he should speak up.

"Do you need help?" The green-eyed beauty turned somewhat surprised in response to his question and shook her head in confidence.

"This meal, although difficult, requires a very balanced and rigorous recipe of cooking. Everything is under the control." Her statement contradicted what was actually happening, in which that her first part had boiled over to reveal a sludge that was completely mysterious to Garfield.

"Oh!" She jumped back to face the stove. "It is ready!" She grabbed the pot hurriedly and turned up the heat to the second pot before dumping the contents of the first pot onto a plate and mixing quickly.

"Would you like to try some of what I'm going to cook?" Garfield offered, mostly out of a concern for the bubbly student. She looked at him in wonder. "It's just pasta, but vegetarian. And tofu. It's really good, I swear."

"Yes! I accept your offer. In return, you may try some of my food. It is called-"

"Oh that's fine. I'm kind of on a diet." Garfield naturally was a very quick thinker, especially in situations such as these. She nodded in understanding and took a seat at the long wooden table that stood in the middle of the kitchen.

"What is your name? I am Kory." She questioned him as he began to prep his food.

"Garfield." He sighed deeply as he dumped the pasta into the warming water. "Weren't you at that party during welcome week? I think we already met." Kory paused in consuming her food and her eyebrows scrunched together in embarrassment. This change in attitude did not go unnoticed by Garfield and he attempted to ease her, not wishing to make her feel uncomfortable.

"Or are you the daughter of a wealthy billionaire as well?" He joked. Her eyes widened.

"How did you know I was very wealthy?" This caused Garfield to look up at her in astonishment.

"I... didn't."

"Oh. Nevermind then." Perplexed, he mixed the sauce in with his pasta. _So is everyone all of a sudden wealthy? I thought everyone in college was supposed to be ramen-eating strugglers like me. _Garfield thought to himself. Seriously, then where is all the scholarship money going too? But she still hadn't answered the original question.

"Sorry. It seems I've seen everyone on campus somewhere, you probably weren't the-"

"I was. I also recognize you as well." Kory admitted. Garfield hummed in response.

"Are you okay? The way you fell into the pool was very-"

"I am the alright now." She smiled warmly, but her eyes begged Garfield to drop the issue and to talk about something else.

"Umm, seriously, you shouldn't worry about it. I've done _far _worse." He stirred the pasta as it grew thicker with sauce. He chuckled to himself as he recalled a popular vine video.

"It is really fine. I did not meet any friends there, so people will soon forget with time." Kory wasn't sure if she was soothing herself or Garfield of worry.

"What do you mean? You met me." He turned to face the troubled foreigner and they both shared bright smiles and somehow Kory knew the statement did not mean he would never forget, but rather he considered her a friend. She twirled her fingers in her curly locks as Garfield placed a plate of pasta in front of her, feeling gleeful for the first time since the party happened. "You're gonna really like this. This shit slaps." Garfield joined her taking a seat with his place across the wooden table.

"What?"

"Hmm?" Garfield looked up at her.

"It _slaps?" _It took Garfield a second to realize she didn't know what it meant.

"Oh, that just means it's really good. The bomb." Kory smiled once again at her new friend.

"I see."

XxX

As the photo of his father appeared on the screen of his cell phone, Garfield sighed in annoyance. He let it ring three more times, wondering if he should feign sleep, before he decided to answer it anyway. Already tired of the conversation, he rolled over in Victor's bed to face his wall, so that it would minimize the amount of arguing Victor would inevitably hear, who was currently sitting on an extra large bean bag on the floor playing a video game on his gamestation.

"How has finding a job been going?" Garfield grew more annoyed than he already was.

"Hello, dad." He chose to ignore his father.

"Hello?" His dad answered back in confusion.

"How are you? Ya miss me yet?" He cheekily smiled into the phone.

"Don't avoid the question. Your debt isn't avoiding you." Garfield groaned into the phone as he elected to sit up against the wall.

"I've been applying," Garfield started. He heard his father groan into the phone.

"You need to try harder. Why don't you go up to the places-"

"Dad, everything is online these days. I can't just go up there. But I've been calling,"

"**Listen** to me." Garfield couldn't help but roll his eyes. "Go up there and ask to speak to the manager. It would really help. You need to start getting serious about this. You're a legal adult now and are capable of paying college off yourself, it's your education, your responsibility."

"I could easily pay it off with the money my parents left me but you won't let me spend it." He muttered into the phone.

"I'm telling you, the money you borrow you only want to use for vacations and such! Work hard, and apply for these scholarships!" His father shouted into the phone. Garfield hadn't really meant for him to hear what he said, but of course his father picked up on it.

"I have." He replied coldly.

"And with that you managed to pay off most of your college correct?"

"I still owe six-thousand dollars."

"Versus thirty-thousand?"

"_Yes,_ but I'm completely broke and there is no way any job is going to give me enough hours to pay it off by the end of the year."

"You are NOT going to use that money, Garfield."

"I seriously don't have to be struggling-"

"GET A JOB. THAT'S FINAL." Garfield rubbed his forehead and closed his eyes, now completely irritated and he wanted to hang up at this point. His father continued on.

"I don't know why you think I'm leading you the wrong way. It's hard, but you're not going to _die_, Garfield. Plenty of students work this way and do not complain. If anything, you need more responsibility-" At this point Garfield began to tune him out as he could also hear his mother raising her voice at her father, which turned into his father both simultaneously arguing with the both of them.

"Can I talk to Rita? I know she's worried about me." Garfield spoke into the phone after taking a minute to himself in an attempt to calm down, interrupting his father mid-lecture.

"That'll be fine, Garfield." Which was the only positive line his father spoke to him during the already ten-minute phone call.

"Good evening Garfield, how are you settling in? Don't mind your father," Garfield was immediately relieved when he heard her sweet voice, a bit passive in her last line.

"I'm good, I'm with Victor now."

"How is he?" Victor, overhearing Rita, gave a thumbs up before resuming his video game, where he was almost done winning his third fight.

"He's good too." Garfield chuckled.

"You do your homework? Oh, I also wanted to tell you that you should wash at night, during weekdays, or early mornings on the weekend. The laundry room will be empty. And you better be washing and cleaning your room. You cannot be a dirty roommate. Do you need a vacuum? I-"

"Rita, I'm fine," He was smiling once again. "I promise I've been clean, actually more clean since I got here. I don't need a vacuum right now."

"And you did your homework?"

"Yes, I did my homework."

"Well...okay." Rita paused. "We're proud of you Garfield. Keep doing well." She concluded. Garfield smiled half-heartedly.

"Thanks, mom."

"Bye. Goodnight." And with that, the phone call was finally over. Victor threw a look of sympathy for his younger friend, earning a smile from the freshman.

"Get your feet off my pillows," Garfield adjusted himself and watched Victor finish his fight. After winning another battle, the junior paused the next one and turned to face his friend, waiting for him to start.

"What?"

"Everything okay, green-bean?" A throwback name back to when Garfield started freshman year of high school by dying his blonde hair with green tips. Back to the day they first met. Victor still hangs it over his head fondly.

"You know how it is." He shrugged his shoulders and fiddled with the edge of Victor's blanket, avoiding eye contact. Victor got up and turned the light on in his room, the bulb casting a sunny orange glow onto Victor's dark skin. He widened his cool grey eyes and sat back down in his bean bag to face Garfield.

"I know you're working hard, but maybe you should consider a student loan?" He suggested.

"He won't let me. Plus I'd prefer to just struggle now than deal with future debt."

"Why don't you just take out your fortune anyway? You just turned nineteen so legally you can do it. You don't need your parents' permission. He's not even helping you pay for college." Garfield looked at his best friend pointedly.

"Not gonna happen. He'd kill me."

"I'm just saying it's _yours_ man. No one else's. You know that." Garfield rested his head against the wall and looked at the door in thought.

"Yeah," he solemnly replied. After Victor accepted that Garfield did not plan on saying anything more, he chose to instead brighten the mood by throwing him a controller instead of pressing him further.

"For now, you can lose against me." Victor smirked at his best friend as they entered a new round of the video game.

"We need to go to the gaming store soon. Did you know a new copy Monkey Madness is out?"

XxX

It was the beginning of a brand new cup full of vodka mixed with Sprite, and she held her red Solo cup up to investigate its state. She did not leave it unattended, and poured the drinks herself, despite the four men that have already hit on her and offered her either a blunt of another cup of alcohol. She smiled cheekily at the cup before downing another gulp. She had never been drunk before, she had never even drank alcohol, but she was surprised at how well she handled herself. She did not believe she was black-out drunk, just wasted. And even then, she managed to think more properly. It was an odd experience. She still felt that she could think as if she was sober, but her thoughts did not align with her actions. Her thoughts observed and watched her every move, making logical statements mentally, but outside, her body was very social, she was talking and dancing with strangers plenty. She felt as if she was the life of the party!

A pool party that is. Inside the house, it was too crowded. People were dancing and shouting and grinding, too much for her, not for her first party. She decided it was best to go outside in the backyard where it was just as fun but more calm, she was wearing her swimsuit anyway. A nice pink bikini she purchased on FashionNova just for this event she planned on attending. She offered to buy Raven one, she thought she'd look amazing in a purple shade, but Raven had told her she'd rather be miserable at work because she was being paid to do it than go to a party surrounded by the smell of fruity vape pens and vomit and be miserable for free.

"Girl, you are wasted. What cup are you on?" A brunette about five feet in height wearing a bikini with glitter on it approached her, pointing to her cup.

"I have drink two, but this is my third cup." Kory slurred.

"Girl, you gotta know you're limit. Let me take that for-"

"DO NOT TOUCH MY CUP! THIS IS MINE!" She shouted at the small girl as she had reached for her cup in an attempt to take it away. Kory raised her cup high above her head, using her height as an advantage. The brunette was shocked for sure, jumping where she stood, before she backed away, slipping into the crowd. She continued to dance too whatever music was playing, unsure of the song, but relishing in the catchy beat and the general atmosphere of the party.

"What up?" She turned to face another boy, shorter than her of course, but taller than most other boys. He held a vape pen between his lips, which smelled of pineapples. He casually slipped his free hand into the pocket of his cargo shorts. The boy couldn't help but look over her with his green eyes before continuing with his statement. "Where's your friends?" Kory scowled at him.

"I am not interested. Go away. I have the weapons." She slurred menacingly at him. His eyebrows jumped at the assumption she'd made, and he was quick to shake his head.

"No, no. I'm not hitting on you. We're just worried about you." He spouted as quickly as possible to dispel any notions that were deemed inappropriate.

"Do you have your phone on you? Do you have the number of your roommate?" It was at this point Kory noticed the tall accomplice to the blonde next to him, his voice boomed with authority and made her temporarily freeze to wonder if she should tell the truth. Instead she preferred to grin at the both of them and take another huge gulp of her drink, an action that painted a look of concern on both of their faces. She faced the blonde and chose to ignore his friend's question.

"Can I try your pen?" She asked, putting her free hand behind her back and swinging from both sides slowly. He raised the pen in question.

"Are you sure?" Kory nodded sweetly and so, he gave it to her. "Careful," She took a long drag of the fruity smell, just like she had seen other students do it all over campus. Then held her breath and looked at the blonde expectedly as she gave him back his pen. "Now you can release it." She did so slowly. She's always wondered if vapes actually did anything to whereas people could feel it. She figured people liked the smell and the aesthetic of watching the smoke curl and float out into the open air.

"My name is Kory," She's been introducing herself a lot lately.

"Garfield. And this is Vic." The blonde motioned to his taller friend, who's look of concern only grew more since before she tried the vape pen. She giggled and took a step back, about to say something when all seemed to go haywire within one second. There was no step backwards. Her foot fell through the air. At the same time she realized something was wrong, Garfield's small smile turned into a look of peril as he reached out to grab her. Victor seemed to freeze in place, only his mouth dropping at the inevitable. She shrieked as her arms flung backwards in an attempt to catch herself, spilling the drink over her head and next thing she knew she had been engulfed in water, the coldness woke her body and she felt sober for a brief two seconds even though nothing changed.

She was somewhat afraid to pop up back at the surface, hearing the gasps and exclamatory comments at the sudden fall they had all no doubt witnessed, and when she did steady herself to stand in the pool, letting the water drip around her in pure embarrassment and not even bothering to fix her hair as she was afraid to move in the event she draw more attention to herself.

"I told you, girl! But you wouldn't listen!" She glared down at the water after knowing full well where that comment came from, in which somehow she heard through the sea of laughter that was directed at her. But then, a friendly hand. The boy named Garfield, leaning down in front of her at the edge of the pool, offering his hand. By his side, Victor motioning for her to come towards the two of them.

She helplessly swam towards them and took Garfield's arm as quickly as possible and he helped her up and buried her in a towel. Kory felt as if she could no longer stay awake as Garfield continued to talk to her, Victor and him walking Kory out of the house and into the front.

"You're okay. But it's time you go home, alright?" Kory didn't bother to acknowledge either one of them as she trudged along the sidewalk, wanting to bury herself even further into her given towel.

"Man, you shouldn't have given her your vape pen. You knew she was wasted!" Victor chastised his partner and so they began to argue.

"One hit didn't do anything. She's just a lightweight,"

"She obviously has no idea how to party safely and you shouldn't have given it to her. For all we know she could have smoked the meth they had in the house before you gave that to her!"

"They DID NOT have meth in the house."

"You don't know that though!"

"Does she look like she's on meth!? She's just wasted we need to find her a water bottle."

"Did she have any-"

"Her name is Raven," Kory interrupted weakly. They both stopped and remembered their self-assigned duties to protect the naive party girl. "I don't know where I left my bag, but it had all my-"

"I got it," Victor raised a pink mini purse hanging in his elbow. "I picked it up because you left it on a chair. That's when we decided to go up to you."

"My phone is in there," Kory continued, completely drained of energy. Victor dug through her purse, pulled out her phone, and dialed Raven's number, knowing her embarrassment would only get worse with time, because Raven was working in the library as she said. Instead, while she mustered up the courage to ask Raven to leave her job to come get her, Victor decided to talk to her roommate instead.

"Kory's your roommate right? This is Victor. You know she's at a party? Alone? We'll call an Uber for her, where are you? Okay, I'll send it towards that library, but it'll probably arrive in the back. Just be there in fifteen minutes to come get her. She fell in the pool, she's all wet, and she's _really _drunk. Also, please go to parties with her. It's not safe like that out here. We live next to Gotham City. Have her drink as much water as possible before bed. Okay. Okay. Bye! Good luck." He hung up and handed the phone back to Kory who accepted it with shame.

"She sounded slightly pissed but I don't think she'll give you anymore trouble."

"I called the Uber, we'll wait with you until it comes." Garfield started, showing the Uber driver status on the bright screen of his phone.

And that's all Kory cared to remember that night. The depressing car ride home and the silence of her roommate as she dragged Kory back to the dorm and tucked her into bed in a passive-aggressive manner is something she'd appreciate to forget.

Now, her roommate was completely immersed in a book she no doubt had taken from the library and sat up in her bed comfortably while simultaneously drinking tea. Kory studied her. This, in fact, was a wonder, seeing Raven with wide eyes seemingly eating up every word she looked over. The pause of her hand holding the cup right before her lips before resuming indicated she was at an intense part in her book. Right now, she was having more fun reading a book than Kory was having scrolling through Instagram for the third time in third row out of boredom before deciding to go on Pinterest. Kory turned to face the other side while laying down in her bed, refusing to get up and attempting to go back to sleep.

"...Are you going to go somewhere today?" Maybe Raven wasn't as immersed as Kory thought.

"No. Why?"

"Usually you're gone around these hours. And you've stayed inside the dorm most of the time for a whole week without asking me if I want to go somewhere with you." Kory did not respond.

"Are you skipping class?" Raven asked.

"Only English. I feel sick." Kory lied. Raven always went to her class on time, but Kory could not go, as she didn't feel like it. Plus, she figured it was safer to skip English class than any of her other classes because the graduate students who teach First-Year English are usually more understanding and nicer.

"You've been wearing the same pajamas all weekend and I notice you have not showered."

"I am okay." Kory mumbled from under the safety of her comforter. She heard Raven's book close purposefully and with this action she knew Raven demanded her immediate attention, so she turned to lock eyes with her roommate.

Raven's dark blue eyes seemed to pierce through her soul. "You cannot keep feeling sorry for yourself," She started. "If the party was as big as you say, you definitely were not the only person to embarrass themselves that night. Plus everyone was drunk, I doubt those people even remember what you look like." Kory just stared back in dejection.

"You should go out. It's not welcome week anymore." Raven repeated herself.

"But I am so sorry," Kory sat up. "I am very sorry you had to come get me, I know you were working and I was immature to go alone." Raven merely rolled her eyes and scoffed.

"I don't care about what happened. My point is that it wasn't a big deal. Go out," However, it was obvious that Kory was still not convinced to leave their dorm room.

"I am most tired."

"No. Let's both go somewhere. I like to be alone but this isn't healthy for you." Raven ignored Kory's wishes and hopped from down her bed- she had it raised quite high when they moved in- and put on her signature black boots.

"Where do you want to go?" Kory asked gently.

"Let's try the mall. I need new tops."

XxX

Raven watched on as Kory looked at herself through the fitting room mirrors, observing how well a skirt fit her figure, one of the many clothing items she had picked out to try on. Raven was already done with her shopping and didn't bother to hide the fact she was over the activity by slouching in one of the chairs to wait for her roommate, her two tiny bags from stores she purchased crop tops from leaning against the arm of the chair. She couldn't help but roll her eyes as Kory went to try on another skirt. She knew she had invited herself to go out with Kory, even encouraged it, but she also a warning on how meticulous Kory would be during shopping would have been nice. They've been at the mall for five hours.

"Kory, I'd like to go home and study soon. I'm pretty sure I have a surprise quiz tomorrow for Bio." She finally spoke up, hoping Kory would understand her message.

"I am just-" Raven could hear Kory fumbling with hangers in her assigned dressing room. "I am just looking at this shirt! It is the last one I believe!"

"Ugh." Raven could not possibly roll her eyes even more than she already has. Kory was just so different. She hated to bring on a pessimistic attitude but seriously, she was completely over it. Though, she had to remind herself, the situation could be a lot worse. At least Kory was amicable and clean. She could've got stuck with a roommate completely gross and rude. And for this reason, she chose to keep her snide comments about wanting Kory to hurry up to herself. With a delightful grin and push of the swing door, Kory stepped out, both of her arms and hands holding clothes.

"I am done!" She announced proudly and the two left for the front counter.

"Let us do a photoshoot." Kory was bursting with energy at this point, cleared of all her worries.

"Kory…"

"We can paint our nails and do each of the others makeup!" She gushed.

"Kory." Raven was getting frustrated at this point.

"Do you wanna get henna before we leave?" She sashayed out of the store with her paid bags of clothes, headed for a henna shop located across from them. "We could get matching-"

"KORY!" She stopped in her tracks and snapped her head towards Raven, still waiting at the exit of the clothing store, who was staring at her incredulously. Kory felt as if she was in trouble with her mother and decidedly did not finish her sentence as Raven walked up to her.

"I don't want to get henna. I want to go home." She made her point very clear as she whispered to her in a low, solemn tone.

"But-" Raven shook her head.

"No. I'm tired. Let's go."

"It will be fast! Plus you said you would do the hanging out with me today at the mall!" Kory whispered back desperately.

"I didn't mean for nearly six hours straight! Didn't you just go shopping before the party? Why do you need so many clothes?"

"It is what I like to do and is considered a valid hobby according to America's girl flick movies!" Kory defended herself helplessly.

"Come on. Six hours is enough." Raven pleaded and began to walk towards the nearest exit.

"Why are you the tired? You did not do anything all day, not even go to work!" Kory pointed out. Apparently, Raven didn't appreciate the comment and glared at Kory deeply.

"Maybe it's what _I like to do_." Raven mocked her earlier statement.

"You are such a-" Kory struggled not to curse in her native language. "Why are you always so mean? You always make the mean comments and act like I spit in your breakfast every morning! Maybe _YOU _should do the going out more! A boyfriend would make you the happy!" The bottled up words spilled freely from her mouth, unable to be contained any longer.

"Have you ever even had a boyfriend?" Raven rolled her eyes at the comment. "You don't know me. There's no rule in college saying you have to be best friends with your roommate, so you can stop trying. I don't have to like you." Raven said this matter-of-factly, but she did end up slightly regretting it when it seemed to hurt Kory personally. She flinched at Raven's statements as if it slapped her across the face. Instead of responding, Kory turned on her heel to face away from her and quickly walked away, to the other side of the mall.

Kory found it extremely distasteful to see other girls with their shopping buddies throughout the mall, drinking Starbucks and having a good time, getting along. She always found herself to be quite approachable and friendly, so it was truly confusing as to why she hadn't made any friends in college to hang out with, especially as she had moved down there for a little over a week now. Not even that boy- Garfield, his name was- had texted her since they traded numbers and Instagram handles over their vegetarian meal. She had waited for him to text or call her about anything to do, because that's what friends do, they hang out with each other, but still he hadn't bothered to reach out, so Kory sadly figured it was a one-time thing. She felt even more alone and down than she was the night of the party. All she wanted to do was to make a friend.

Her phone vibrated inside her purse which interrupted her depressing train of thoughts, in which she was thankful for. As she opened her phone to see the new notification, she could only groan in defeat.

**Luther University Safety Alert: Robbery/Theft**

Someone got robbed gunpoint on campus earlier this morning near the social sciences building, she learned as she read on. Needless to say, This day was NOT her day.

* * *

_Hello! Author here! I have wanted to write this story for the LONGEST TIME guys! I already have the next four chapters planned out. _

_So let me start by saying I do not own any part of brands I mentioned, including Snapchat, instagram, Nike, FashionNova, and the teen Titans and anything else mentioned on here. What I know about college is based on my experience, as I am headed to start my second year of college right now. _

Shout-out to anyone who can guess what vine Garfield was thinking about while preparing his pasta.


	3. Chapter 2

It had been super awkward to stay in her dorm room since the fight with Kory, to the point she opted to stay on the balcony of their dorm floor most of the time to avoid her roommate. Kory has not said one word to her since then, and when they were inevitably in each other's presence, Kory pretended she wasn't there while Raven was too stubborn to speak to her about anything, and so the two did not even acknowledge each other anymore. It had only been two days, but it felt like it had been a week. But as of right now, Raven did not care if Kory was in the room or not, she was way too tired from work to uphold the silent treatment they were both going through.

Luckily, as Raven swung the door carelessly and let her lanyard drop to the floor in pure laziness, Kory was not in their designated room, which meant that Raven could enjoy a peaceful nap without feeling like Kory was glaring bullets at her through her blanket. All in one swift move, she shook off her sneakers and rolled into her bed, whipping out her phone to check the most recent paystub she earned.

Eight hundred and sixty dollars. That is how much money Raven racked up in two weeks with the combined effort of her two jobs. She had been working her ass off to save as much as she could before school became serious, typically after the first week of classes, which she had just finished, so the money came in at a perfect time. Gas had been a bitch the entire week, as she officially quit her second job that very day, the off-campus job she had been working at which was closer to home than in college, but she was finally done with that part of her plan. Now that she had quit, she planned on getting another second job, one closer to her dorm and one that pays more, so that she could save enough to succeed in her plan- paying off all of her leftover student debt by the time school is over.

Although she was exhausted from her shift, sifting through the emails on her phone to look at her acceptance messages to one of the most prestigious scholarships she could find was her unofficial ritual every time she opened her phone. She had worked hard for it, and it still filled her with happiness and a sense of accomplishment that she was awarded it. Most of all, it gave her motivation to keep doing what she was doing. However, her scholarship could only be applied to next year and the coming years' price of college, leaving her to deal with freshman year all alone. So, she planned on paying it all off as soon as possible because she didn't want any debt. It made sense. Work hard now, relax the next three years.

Raven immediately paid five hundred and sixty to her student account and honestly, it was a drug watching the debt number go down. Five-thousand more to go. She was about to place her phone on the charger and wrap herself into her blankets when she heard her notification ringtone go off. With a roll of her eyes, she looked at her home screen only to find out that it was _another _email from the Man.

_Good Afternoon Raven,_

_I do hope you respond soon. I only wish to talk to you in the very least, I understand your hesitance. How has college been treating you? I hope you are having a wonderful experience. I know what your mom might have said about me, and I want to explain. _

_A.R._

Raven couldn't help but frown as she exited out of the app and resume her activities. This had been about the fifth email she received from him and she's ignored all of them. She's not even sure how he managed to not only track her down, but figure out her email. The man claims to be her father.

It was not out of anger, or any negative emotion really, that caused her to ignore something so ludicrous. If anything she should reach out because in the chance this man is not her long-lost father, she should report him and figure out who her new stalker is instead of keeping silent and pretending the messages weren't real. However, she wanted to proceed with caution. Raven had thought about asking her mother, but it would be very awkward to bring up, considering her mother _never _talked about her father- and Raven never asked.

XxX

Raven's on campus job, one of the school's main libraries, was her favorite of her duties so far. Naturally fond of libraries, she enjoyed reading through all the subjects and titles of all the books she sorted and arranged through, plus it was a fairly quiet environment complete with it's own cafe which she could visit during her break. She also chose to work the night shift, which meant the library was pretty empty and so she could do her homework during her shift. It was perfect in a lot of ways. The only downfalls of the job were her coworkers. She was never someone who considered herself a people person, she preferred working alone. It seemed ever since she has moved to college, she has been placed everywhere all the extroverts seemed to be. It was still a mystery on why she was assigned to room with a girl like Kory even though their personalities were the exact opposite, for example.

Her coworkers took much advantage of the free time available on their shared night shifts, running up and down the halls and pushing each other in library chairs, playing hide and go seek in the book aisles, and going on midnight food runs to Canes so they could come back and watch Netflix. These activities, Raven never minded- she often spent her free time reading, getting ahead on homework, and watching movies on her phone- it's just that her coworkers did it so often they forgot that they do actually have duties and so Raven ended up doing it for them. One of the main problematic ones was a girl who ran the front desk with her. Tall and skinny, with a very relaxed fashion sense mainly consisting of shorts and a graphic T-shirt, the blonde Terra, who was also quite the opposite of her, being one of the main instigators to the games the other coworkers played, a girl who talked _a lot. _Though, Raven didn't dislike her, but despite sitting next to each other half the time, they weren't trying to be friends, either.

Tonight, Terra sat at the front desk eating chips she had bought from the vending machine, scrolling through Instagram, looking at nails from what Raven could tell.

"It's your turn to clean the bathrooms." Raven was always very blunt. She rested the cleaning supplies against the counter. The reason why Raven has never confronted Terra about doing her duties (yet) is because she always gives Terra the worse ones. It was like a trade-off that Terra was blindly unaware of. Raven cleaned the bathrooms most of the time while Terra relaxed most of the time. But Raven also knows which frequent visitors make the most messes, and twenty minutes before telling Terra it is her time, she saw a girl who is known (only to Raven, of course) to take monster shits that clog up the toilet enter the bathroom, and so during those few times, Terra gets to clean it up while Raven relaxed in turn.

"You got me. I'm on it." She took the cleaning supplies and proceeded to the bathroom, unknowing of its current state.

"Hey." As Raven sat back down in her chair, she became face-to-face with a girl she recognized.

"Hello. Is there anything you need help with?" Most students had trouble locating the computer and study rooms downstairs or printing. But the girl only smiled and shook her head.

"You're in my Chemistry class aren't you? With Dr. Wilson right? At 10:30 Tuesdays and Thursdays?"

"Yes." The girl was Karen, now that Raven recognized her two Afro puffs and signature red lipstick. They sat next to each other in Chemistry, often assisting each other in the lecture quizzes the professor would hand out. Karen nodded happily.

"I think we make a good team. I need a study buddy, that's one of the weed-out classes this year. Are you up for it?" Karen Beecher was one of the few people Raven got along with, if not the only (potential) friend she's made so far.

"Sure." Karen smiled in success and slid her phone to reveal her phone number to Raven.

"Let me know when you're available. I'd like to review the titration and equilibrium equations."

XxX

Kory had never held her mouth shut for so long before. She swore she hadn't talked to anybody since the argument with Raven, and it killed her she had nobody to speak too. Currently, she sat in the lounge of her dorm floor, facing the hall that led to her room. She knew Raven was there, as Kory saw her car parked in the lot behind the dorm. She knew parking passes were about seven hundred to a thousand dollars, but she also knew that where Raven parked was a lot that was not checked on- and therefore free. This is something had she became friends with Raven, Kory would applaud her for finding such a spot, but also offer to buy her a parking pass anyway, so that she would have one. But Kory is not Raven's friend.

As Kory finally gave up and started to trudge to her dorm, she began to hear talking. The sound of Raven. And another person? Even laughter from the unknown party. Frowning to herself, she held her student ID to the door scanner so that it would unlock. It was very awkward to see Raven again, and to make eye contact with her once more. Raven sat in her bed with another girl, school supplies spread about. The other girl was black with very dark skin, wearing a yellow ensemble, and the two of them stared up at Kory awkwardly. If Kory had felt comfortable enough to speak, she'd compliment the girl on her choice of colors, as it looked very good on her.

"Hello, I'm Karen." The girl introduced herself, unaware of the conflict between Kory and Raven. Kory smiled half-heartedly.

"Kory." She replied meekly.

"Let's go to the study room." Raven hopped off the bed and began to pack her backpack and so at this moment Karen realized something was off between the two, but followed Raven out of the room with a perplexed look on her face.

"What was that?" Karen didn't mind asking the uncomfortable questions, even though it was obvious Raven felt averse to talking about the situation. Raven sighed as she led the two down the hall.

"Nothing." She answered unceremoniously. But Karen wasn't buying it.

"Come on, is it really that bad? You know you met her only what like, two weeks ago and y'all already fighting?"

"We got in a fight."

"That's for sure." The study rooms had glass walls and ceiling-to-floor length white boards, with plenty of tables and chairs, which made it perfect for late night study sessions. They sat down close to the wall and unpacked their study tools.

"We're really different."

"I could tell." This was obvious to Karen. Raven's entire side of her dorm had a completely different theme than Kory's side. Raven was very minimalistic, her main decoration being a shelf full of books that were written in foreign languages or had very odd titles that made it seem like Raven was majoring in alchemy rather than chemistry, complete with a couple of posters no doubt bought from Spencer's or Hot Topic while Kory had more pink and girlish things like a small makeup vanity and a cork board filled with stickers and pictures of old friends.

Raven rolled her eyes at Karen's ability to pry into the situation. "I might have said some things that went over the line. But she also went over the line too." Karen nodded.

"But is it worth it to be fighting with your roommate over? Your gonna be living with each other for at least a year so you should just apologize and talk to her. She doesn't seem that bad."

In truth, Karen was right. After their study session and when Raven returned to her room, she struggled to find the words to address Kory, who laid on her bed, flipping through a Vogue magazine while also pretending to be unbothered by her presence. Raven was never one to apologize first, and while that is a very detrimental habit of having too much pride, she was also right in a lot of these types of situations. But also, she couldn't stand living in a room where she couldn't relax.

"Hey." Kory looked up from the magazine, first at the window, then dragged her green eyes to meet with Raven's blue eyes with a frown. "I think we should talk." Kory only blinked at her once more. "I'm sorry for telling you all that stuff." She waited patiently for Kory's response, but she only continued to stare at her with suspicious eyes.

"Okay." It wasn't so bad to apologize, but her lack of reaction had made her nervous and Raven began rock her legs back and forth against the bed.

"Do you wanna go this store with me? We could get a few movies and food, and stay in to get to know each other a little bit more." She offered. It would be wrong to say Kory didn't find the act of Raven apologizing slightly amusing or satisfactory, not to say she didn't appreciate the effort. It had actually caught Kory off guard, it seemed to come out of nowhere to her. Of course she'd go with Raven. But she made her wait for her answer by looking like she was thinking about the idea as Raven squirmed before accepting her offer.

"Yes, I accept your apology and I will go with you."

XxX

How jobs today notify their applicants was honestly just so annoying at this point to go through, and this is what Garfield concluded as he deleted _another _rejection email from a nearby shop he applied too. However, he applied two months ago and had completely forgotten about it until now. Didn't make it less frustrating to deal with. He had made a subconscious list of jobs he was keeping up with as he applied, and mentally crossed that job from his list, also making it a point to apply to another job that night. The sad ones are always the close calls though. Just the other day, he almost secured a job that paid fifteen dollars an hour. The phone interview went really well, with his interviewer becoming giddy with his answers, but at the end, _the very end, _it was found out that they were looking for full-time employees while Garfield was obviously a full-time college student. Those were the type of jobs that left him in a sour mood. He began to scroll through his school emails instead of dealing with the frustration that comes with looking for a job.

**Luther University Safety Alert: Robbery/Theft**

Garfield rolled his eyes at the message. He didn't realize college campuses were capable of so much crime, especially as busy as theirs, there were people literally everywhere all the time. Where and when are people getting robbed in dark remote places?

It had been the third alert he's gotten in the past three days, and the incident, as reported, happened about two hours beforehand, which made it early in the morning as Garfield was now in his morning Calculus class.

"What kind of guy is going around robbing people who is also less than five feet tall?" The description of the alleged criminal was somewhat laughable as it was the exact opposite of what would be considered intimidating qualities a guy could have. But perhaps that's why he kept getting away with it. Richard shrugged in response as Garfield flipped to the required math notes.

"It's the same person as the last two." Richard clicked his pen repeatedly. "I'd say just don't hang around the parking garages in the middle of the night."

"It would be _so _funny if it turned out to be some eight-year old." Garfield chuckled at the image. "But I feel bad for the people who got robbed." He clarified so as to not seem insensitive. Richard looked at him incredulously. Feeling somewhat sheepish, Garfield's smile was lost as Richard continued to stare at him like his skin just turned green. "I was just kidding." Garfield repressed the urge to roll his eyes, but was taken aback when Richard began to shake his head, turning his body so that it faced Garfield.

"No no, it's not that… it's just… I might know who it is." Richard lowered his voice so that only Garfield could hear him and his thoughts. "I might've met him before."

"Dude, you need to meet new people." Garfield scoffed, not taking it too seriously. But Richard continued to stare at him expectedly. "Are you serious right now?"

"Yes. The person I'm thinking of doesn't go here, but he lives close by."

"Why do you think it's him?"

"Because he has this funny little disposition about him. And he's a kid too, but a really smart one."

"So you're talking about a literal eight year old? This kid could've had dwarfism or something. This is a big campus with a lot of students." Garfield tried to bring rationality into Richard's thinking, but Richard already had am image of one person in mind.

"I should check on him. He's too smart to be doing something wrong like this." Garfield looked on with skepticism and continued to discourage Richard from whoever he was thinking about.

"I don't know. Shouldn't you just let the police handle it? You should give then an anonymous tip of something."

"The police had the chance to do something the last two times it happened. Plus, no one's accusing, I just wanna see him." Richard now was confident in what his future plans held. "I'm gonna go tomorrow. And if it isn't him, then I'll just drop it."

"Can I come?" Garfield offered his company so casually.

"What?" Richard normally did things alone, and most of the time didn't mind it this way, but it occurred to him that he had been talking to Garfield about his plans as if they were close friends.

"Can I come? I've got nothing to do." Garfield repeated.

"Yeah." Richard nodded. "Sure." He wasn't sure exactly why he said yes, normally he'd be inclined to say no. But if what was expected to happen were to be true, he'd appreciate the company.

XxX

He walked quickly and briskly in his pajamas, complete with slippers. The most recent job he had applied too. To his shock, campus was completely desolate. Granted, it was two in the morning, but still, his dorm halls for example were still busy. Bunch of students lounging around on hammocks attached to the trees, listening to their music on boomboxes and going to the late-night campus diners that we're still open. He'd figured campus would be the same way, except with the more studious (or the procrastinating) still wandering about. But he was wrong, and so he finally understood how people got robbed.

He was walking to the Luther University's main library, the Library for the Liberal Arts college, in order to ask about his application status as he applied to work this very shift, and so he could tell his dad he finally followed his advice and to leave him alone. Though, he could admit he probably should have showed up in actual clothes and not his pajamas. He walked up to the front desk with purpose, but it was empty on the other side. He waited patiently and looked around for any employee, but he couldn't tell from the students and those who were working. There was a tiny bell though.

He hit it with his finger once, and waited for any reaction.

"Give me a second." There. To his right. By the computers. A girl had responded to him, but she was working with someone at the time, bent at the waist fixing some computer problem for another student. Garfield looked on in interest. _She must be at least five foot ten, _Garfield thought to himself. His eyes followed her all the way back to the front desk, she flipped her long, straight black hair that framed her heart shaped face perfectly behind her shoulder as she prepared to address him once again, she was very relaxed.

"How may I help you?" She asked calmly. She had _beautiful _blue eyes, they were dark blue and so deep one would think they were purple that shone out against her pale skin tone. And she had features that rivaled Bella Hadid. _Wow. _Literally could be a model with those cheekbones, full lips, _that figure, _he had caught a glimpse of the length of her legs when she had walked back to the counter. Her style was a bit dark for Garfield's taste as she wore a black tank top under a black crop hoodie with black skinny jeans and equally black combat boots but-

"Are you okay?" Raven stared at the smitten boy who stared blankly and silently at her. It had only been a minute but it felt like his deep green eyes bore into hers for five minutes straight. As if to come back to life, he gulped at her question and tousled his blonde hair nervously.

"Hey." He attempted to say coolly. She only blinked at him.

"How may I help you?" She hated students like this, that made her repeat things. Raven thought he should go to bed and not be up this late. Maintaining eye contact, he leaned against the desk and smiled politely at Raven.

"I applied here recently and I was wondering if I could know the status of my application?" He had said that line so much it slipped easily from his tongue. Raven nodded then scrunched her eyebrows.

"I'm sorry, we're not hiring anymore." Awkward silence. Raven could tell the boy did not expect this as he seemed to now stare beyond her, in mild but contained frustration. Raven thought he might get mad at her for a split second, but instead the boy smiled at her.

"Okay." He accepted it with a low and quiet voice, but remained in front of Raven expectedly. Raven only stared back at him, waiting for his next move.

"You wanna hang out sometime?" His eyebrows bounced upwards. "My name's Garfield, by the way."

"What?" Raven was honestly taken aback and began to blush at the sudden question.

"I mean, I know you're at work," His fingers drummed along the counter. "But I figured it was worth a shot. We can go see a movie or something?" Raven was sure her mouth was hanging open in astonishment at this point.

"I can't." She could feel her entire face turn beet red. "I'm sorry I am really busy-"

"No no," Garfield began to take steps backwards away from her. "It's fine. College life is crazy," He gave her a thumbs up as he approached the library doors. "Maybe later." He exited, leaving her in her shock.

"Did that guy just ask you out?" Terra came from behind her, plopping down in the computer chair next to her. "I was about to walk in, but then I thought I shouldn't ruin the moment. Did you say ``yes"?"

"I said no." Terra sighed and pursed her lips.

"Too bad. He was cute."

XxX

Their dorms had their own little private spot on campus. There were three freshman dorms, one belonged to the engineering, and the other two belonged to the Liberal Arts. They formed an arch on the land, and in the middle was a field that was used plenty to host events and play games or hang hammocks. There were also benches surrounding this area, and on a bench Richard sat waiting for his two accomplices. He texted Garfield and sat in the heat of the night awaiting him. It was slightly awkward for him, it was funny the idea of hanging out. Kind of sad really, even sadder he had not thought about hanging out with someone before. Except that _girl_. He still thought of her bouncy red curls and her smile and she said goodbye to him on the elevator. And he still kicked himself for not thinking to ask for her number either. He had been used to being by himself after a long time.

"Richard!" Two of his peers came from behind him, running out of the engineering dorm.

"It's me. What's up?" Garfield was with another boy who was no doubt the oldest of the three, wearing a Nike ensemble and squirting water into his mouth to combat the heat. "This is my friend Victor. You don't mind if he comes too, do you?"

"No, I guess not." He was already here. No big deal.

"So what's the plan?" Victor sat down next to Richard. "Garfield told me you know who's been robbing people around here." He exhaled.

"Are you okay? You seem tired." Richard ignored his question to wonder about Victor's health, he was breathing really hard. Victor nodded and waved his hand as too dismiss the topic.

"I'm fine. Just got out of football practice. I'm just thirsty, that's all."

"Okay. So if it's who I think it is, he lives not too far. We could Uber or something-"

"I got a car," Victor interrupted.

"Alright." Richard continued on. "I know him because my roommate's girlfriend used to hang with him. He's like a little brother or something to her. I went with my roommate to see them a couple of times."

"What's his name?" Garfield questioned.

"I'm not sure if it's his real name, they have a lot of nicknames for each other. Gizmo?"

"You sure it's him?" Victor took another swig of his water bottle.

"Eighty-five percent sure. I just want to go up there and see if anything's off. It might not even be true. But if it isn't, I was just going to come back here and go to late-night." Garfield frowned at this and raised his eyebrows.

"Or you could hang with us, we were gonna go to the movies tonight." Garfield offered.

"And see what?" Victor and Garfield grinned at each other.

"MIB!" They shouted at each other enthusiastically and Richard couldn't help but smile at their friendship.

"Or I'm open to that new Quentin Tarantino movie," Garfield admitted, earning a glare from Victor.

"No. We have a list. Remember? We have to see the movies in order of the list." Victor reminded him in a serious tone, ignoring Garfield waving his hands up and down as to calm him down.

"Okay, okay. We should get going."

The engineering dorms were complete with their own garage and Victor was lucky enough to snag a spot close to the exit.

"What major are you studying?" Richard wondered aloud.

"I'm double majoring in mechanical and aerospace engineering." Victor answered coolly, but it earned sounds of awe from both Garfield and Richard.

"And you're doing football? Are you okay?" Richard joked, but Victor only shrugged his shoulders.

"It's cool. What about you, what's your major?"

"Criminology then I want to add on business."

"That explains your detective-like vibe. And what we're doing," Richard smiled and turned to Garfield.

"What about you?"

"Oh." Garfield ran his hand through his hair. "Undecided right now. But I'm leaning towards Veterinary Science." Richard shrugged.

"It's okay. First year is general eds anyway. But what's making you lean towards animals?"

"I don't know. I like them a lot, humans don't deserve them honestly." Garfield admitted.

"Oh, you're gonna turn left and it'll be on your right." Richard guided Victor to the street where the house of the alleged criminal was. It was a lame little house with one lame little red truck and a lame little light that glowed through the curtains of the half-opened windows.

"Maybe you should knock first." Garfield suggested to Richard as Victor parked the car. All three could hear the faint sounds of video game noises coming from the living room as they approached the front door. Richard gave three firm knocks and together they waited for an answer.

The door whipped open with purpose and all three students had to look down to acknowledge who opened the door. A tiny boy peered up at them with beady eyes and wore a green jumpsuit.

"What are you doing here, bird brain? Did you miss the message that you're only invited when my sister is with you?" The way he talked was very fast, as if he did not need to think about what to say next.

"What the fuck?" Victor was dumbfounded at the boy's apparent attitude and so the boy turned to address both Garfield and Victor who stood behind Richard in the doorway.

"Who are these two fart-sniffers that came with you today?"

"I thought you said he was smart. Do smart people say things like fart-sniffers?" Garfield noted aloud.

"I AM SMART. THAT'S WHY YOUR THIRTY YEAR OLD ASS IS STILL IN COLLEGE, ASS-FACE."

"I just turned nineteen." Garfield did not take much offense to the little boy, if anything it was somewhat amusing to watch. Richard remained unwavered in front of the boy.

"No Gizmo, don't mind them. I just came over to check up on you."

"Like some pervert? Let me get my cousin." Gizmo slammed the door in their face to leave them in their stunned silence.

"He might not come back." Victor said after a few seconds.

"Why do you think it's _him_?" Garfield asked Richard, completely baffled by what just happened.

"Because I can totally picture him going on campus to rob people for shits and giggles." The door swung open again, this time with Gizmo and a teenage boy who reeked of country vibes.

"What 'chu wanna check up on him for?" The teenager leaned against the door frame.

Richard's face became serious as he chose to address Gizmo in a very calm manner so as to not upset him. "I'll be honest. I'm not saying it is you. Someone has been going around campus robbing people who matches your description. Are you doing anything illegal Gizmo?"

"No!" Gizmo scowled at him. "Get off my property! If you're actually worried, you'd call the cops, flea-infesting idiots!" He slammed the door closed again. They stood once more in stunned silence.

"Well that didn't work." Garfield and Victor made their way back to Victor's car. Richard stood at the door for a minute longer before following suit. "You still think it's him?" Garfield could read the foiled expression on Richard's face.

"Positive."

"Well we can try again later. Let's go to…" Garfield looked at Victor with a grin. "MIB!" They both shouted and it was apparent to Richard it was now a ritual to shout MIB together between the two. Richard didn't mind that he was now no doubt in trouble with his roommate now, Gizmo was surely phoning Jinx and telling them about their little encounter. However, he couldn't ignore the fact that _he knew_ it was Gizmo as well. Even though he was going to hang out for the first time with people other than Wally and his girlfriend, he couldn't keep it off his mind that it could be anyone else.

* * *

_Author here! Disclaimer: I do not own Zia, Nike, Teen Titans, MIB, or anything else mentioned on here, I dont know if I have to say that for every chapter._

_Also, this was originally meant to be two separate chapters, but they were too short, so I combined them. But also, I had to end it here because it was going to be super long if I wrote all the content I was planning to write._

_And, sorry for the late update! I just moved back to my college dorm and am still getting set up with my schedule of volunteering and my new job and such. Yall, my dorm is sooo nice. My view is the shit. I finally have food now other than Ramen. I'm going to a party tonight too. _

_SHOUTOUT TO VICTORIAGP2222 FOR GUESSING THE CORRECT VINE! YOU CAN CUSS TOO! THATS WHY THIS STORY IS RATED M! LOVE YOU FOR BEING MY ONLY REVIEWER LMAO_


	4. Chapter 3

Wally and Jinx were sleeping soundly in Wally's bed, quite undisturbed, but Richard still had opted to go into the common room of his floor as no one occupied it this time of night. At one in the morning, Richard now sat on the plush but drab grey couch with the 'evidence' he collected sprawled about on the tiny tea table in front of him in casual bedtime wear, wearing a simple red boxers and a yellow t-shirt. He was not tired at all, in fact he had gotten plenty of sleep and had merely woken up at midnight. Of course, as a member of this generation, instead of going back to sleep, he checked his phone, and dived into the deep hole of the University's social media page. SafeZone was the equivalent of Instagram and Twitter except exclusively just for Luther University and it was originally supposed to be an app that reports crimes on campus, but the students got to know it's other features a little better. It's also the app Richard spent the majority of welcome week on in a sad, failed attempt to identify the red-headed girl who hung out with him at the carnival. However now, he ended up using the app for it's intended purposes.

Richard had dug through many different online threads and reports about Gizmo, or _the suspect, _and like any other college student who has a sudden surge of focused energy in the middle of the night, got up to do something about it. After a quick run to the library across campus to print out all the necessary documents, he now found himself in the common room. Many of the threads talking about the robbery reports were mostly just making fun of the fact that the criminal in all of the crimes were of very short stature and spat out insults that were so creative that to the point where it was laughable to take offense against them, but he combed through every report or even alleged sightings in order to piece together a description that was more specific than what the police reports gave, proven with the squeaks of his highlighters. He had concluded it was Gizmo a long time ago, but what proved that Gizmo was guilty, as he had come to find, was not the way he looked, it was the way he spoke to the victims.

XxX

It is honestly so cruel how the college experience is sold to high school kids. College students are pictured as having the time of their lives, non-stop partying, and basically living the teenage dream at least until finals week hits. This led to Garfield believing that despite the stereotype that all college students could afford to eat was Ramen, he would also have more money for leisure activities and he was disappointed to find it wasn't true, even though in hindsight, he shouldn't have been surprised. It didn't help that pretty much all the international students, especially the asian ones for some reason, all wore nothing but designer brands and drove in designer cars and already had elaborate plans for how they were to spend Spring Break second semester. He had spent the last week eating mostly rice, pasta and cereal, only eating in one of the dining halls when it was with one of his friends who happened to have an unlimited meal plan. Whenever he went to the cafeteria alone, he brought tupperware with him to sneak food out for a later time to eat. He wasn't alone in this method. Actually, it was quite common. But now, he no longer had to worry about such problems, because he got a job.

He did the phone interview the day after he had gotten rejected from that girl who worked in the library. He never took the rejection personally, and honestly the whole interaction was not a big deal to him. If anything, he'd have been surprised if she did say yes, considering the circumstances in which she had been asked out. Maybe it was because he had indicated to her that he was absolutely broke and so he didn't have the funds to take her out anyway. But also, maybe now, he could ask her out again and actually have the money to go out somewhere. His new job was at the local pet shelter. It was pretty simple, and actually preferred as he had always been an animal type of person, and today would be his first training day.

"Are you Garfield Logan?" The question came from a fellow employee who sat on the ground next to the fish tanks, holding a bucket of supplies. He sported a worn-out fraternity T-shirt underneath the slightly tattered black apron that held fish supplies and the like, and his long dark hair was in a basic ponytail as he stared at him awaiting his answer.

"Yes. Is Andrew in to-"

"Andrew called out so I'm the lead today." He stretched out his hand in greeting. "I'm Garth." Accepting his hand to shake it, he couldn't help but question his name.

"Your name is _Garth_?"

"And your name is Garfield. So?" Garfield dropped the subject of his odd name as another employee trudged behind him, mumbling something incoherently and surprising Garfield for a second. "That's Tram. He's been here forever, so he can help you with whatever you ask him. Plus he's pretty cool." The elderly man shot a half-assed wave before grabbing a bag of dog food from behind the counter and trudging away from the two. "So.." Garth redirected the attention back over to him.

"The first thing you are going to learn to do is tend to the fish." He stood up to dust off his apron. "You know how to feed fish? You just shake this little container over the water." Garth handed over a small container of fish food over to Garfield, who proceeded to feed the fish with Garth's direction, shaking the food over the tank calmly before Garth snatched it out of his hand and sneered at him.

"Are you crazy? That's way too much." Out of pure shock, Garfield just frowned at the awkward silence and Garth's unforgiving face before attempting to recover from the situation.

"Sorry. They won't eat all of it though, right?" Garfield looked at the fish tank in question as the fish swam over one another to pick at the food on top and the food cascading down into the sand.

"Wrong. They'll eat all of it, so you better hope they don't die now. "

"I said sorry-"

"You don't have to tell me, tell it to the fish who's tank you just saturated. Maybe you're better with dogs." Garth scoffed.

"Do you go to Luther?" Garfield opted to change the conversation as he no longer could deal with the awkwardness of it all and also took the mental note that his coworker might be a bit of an asshole. Garth took the bait and nodded to him as he led Garfield to the back end of the shelter. "What do you major in?"

"Sustainability." The walls of the shelter were painted in a youthful glow, with amateur paintings of animals with happy expressions and fun facts all over the brick white walls, which was completely opposite of the overall mood as the dogs barked and whimpered with all their might and the whole scene just reeked of depression. "Don't be scared, they are all pretty nice. But you need to keep an eye on the dogs especially more than the other animals because they have been going missing." Garfield whipped his head to the man in front of him.

"Missing?"

"Yeah. We don't know how, and basically all our money is going to upgrade the security system because we don't know how they get in. But the dogs have been going missing, and the ones we do find, are found in these super ghetto and shoddy conditions." Garth explained. "And between you and me, they always go missing when it's Tram's turn to watch them, but I didn't tell you that." Garth whispered, leaning into Garfield's ear. It was the straw that broke the camel's back as Garfield frowned at the poor dogs who called to him incessantly. Of course he knew working at a shelter definitely would have it's dismal moments, but to see it first-hand was something he wasn't accustomed too.

"Maybe you guys should tell Tram, though. If all the dogs are disappearing under him. Do you think he has something to do with it?" Garth shook his head.

"Nah. He sleeps throughout his shift and Andrew doesn't have the balls to tell him because he's been here forever." Garth shrugged his shoulders. "And his shift is when I'm off, but you're here now." Garth patted his back dominantly. Garfield just held his tongue and huffed in response. He was fine with watching the dogs anyway over Tram and Garth. They were already better company.

"And now I've got to head back up front, so why don't you do some maintaining until I can train you once more." The front of the shelter now had people waiting anxiously in line, presumably about a missing animal determined by their frantic state and hushed whispering as Garth made his way nonchalantly back to the desk. "Put all the dog shit in the dumpster, not the trash can okay?" Garth shouted and shot Garfield a thumbs up before addressing the family's issues, to his embarrassment. In the tiny white room Garth had left him in, he could see the gloves and trashbags residing in a small corner on the third highest shelf. As he sighed to himself, his phone vibrated with a purposeful buzz inside his cargo shorts, and he could see the name of his caller was Richard. Which was odd, considering Garfield is the main one texting him, not the other way around. Still, despite the out-of-the-ordinary action, he opted to ignore his call and text him instead.

_I'm at work. What U need? _He hadn't even put the phone back into his pocket when it dinged with Richard's reply.

_I found the guy. It's Gizmo, and I have proof. _Garfield rolled his eyes. Still?

_He said it wasn't him tho- _Another ding.

_Meet me at the Towers Parking Lot, and bring Victor too. ASAP_

_I don't get off work until another hour from now. _

_Then we will meet in an hour._

With an even heavier sigh, he slid his phone into his pocket and resumed his duties placed on him by Garth. Not to say Richard was getting annoying, but Garfield just didn't understand his obsession with this. Yes, the robbing situations are getting kind of worrying, but Gizmo is a kid. Plus, there is a reason why there is campus police.

Victor was a bit skeptical as well as they arrived in the aforementioned place together. After work, Victor had picked Garfield up and despite both not being in the mood to catch a criminal or _whatever _Richard was on about, they were not about to pass up the opportunity of hanging out with the son of a billionaire.

"How do you know it's him?" A lot of people would tell Garfield that he was naive or non-realistic yet between him and Richard, he felt he was asking the appropriate questions(for the umpteenth time). Richard was dressed in all black, sporting matching black running Nike's and a black backpack to complete his look of mystery. He held thin files in his hands and distributed them between the two.

"It's how he talks. The names he calls people. You'll know it when you see it." Victor looked around in the parking lot that was growing darker by the minute as the sun settled above them.

"So are we just gonna sit here then? What are we waiting for?" Victor couldn't help but postulate.

"You can be the bait." Victor whipped his head at the unofficial detective.

"What?!"

"You'll be our bait, he'll come attack you, and Garfield and I will come and we'll get him." Now it was Garfield's turn to eye Richard as if he was crazy.

"I'm not saving nobody. I'm not even dressed to run." He gestured to his black slacks and gifted work shirt. " I just got off work."

"Yeah," Victor chimed in. "And I don't want to be attacked. Just because I'm big doesn't mean I don't have pain receptors." He spat in defense.

"It won't be like that." Richard grabbed the backpack from behind his shoulders and opened the first pocket with a quick zip. "Look," he pulled out an elaborate-looking project and held it for Garfield and Victor to examine. "All you have to do is hold this. He loves tech stuff, this is an Arduino board with a couple of controllers glued on a big piece of cardboard. Call it whatever you want, but Gizmo will fall for it and try to rob you." A pause. Victor and Garfield's expressions were somewhat between curiosity and pure what-the-fuck reactions. "That's when me and Garfield, or at least _me, _will come in and we will catch him. I promise. I won't let it get out of hand. Okay?" Richard said with slight impatience. It was getting to be time.

"Can I keep it after we're done?" Victor became giddy at the thought of playing with free Arduino boards.

"Yes." Victor snatched the board out of his hands and smiled broadly at the freshman. Accepting his duty.

"What do you need me to do?" Richard gestured to the dark parking lot.

"Walk around, be on your phone." With a nod of his head, Victor carried the Arduino with one hand and began to scroll through whatever social media app with his other, walking away from the two around the parking lot. Garfield rolled his eyes in exasperation as the two watched Victor pace around the circular lot in silence. After a few minutes and before his eyes got any more droopier out of pure boredom and slight annoyance, he looked at the file that Richard had given to him.

"I seriously doubt he's here right now. This is Vic's third lap." Garfield rested his chin on his fist.

"Any second."

"How long have you been here?"

"About an hour and a half." Richard said nonchalantly, earning an odd glance from the blonde boy, but both their heads immediately snapped up when they heard a piercing yelp from across the parking lot. "Be quiet. Follow me." Richard's voice became deeper and more serious as he warned Garfield, who was one second away from calling Victor's name.

"What are we gonna do?" Garfield's panicked whisper only earned a hush from his counterpart as they both moved towards the sounds of struggle and anguish. Upon approaching the noise, they could both confirm with their own eyes that it had been Victor who initially screamed upon attack, and now he was wrestling and shouting at a shorter human who was impressively crawling and climbing all over his body who also was waving a black glock around with one hand, the arduino-cardboard now on the ground some inches away. Without hesitation, Richard walked up to the two and snatched the little boy by his hoodie and dragged him off of Victor, putting him down on the floor and then attempted to snatch the gun away from him. Instead, the boy was intent on keeping his weapon and did not let go without a fight.

"I'll pull the trigger, you butt-sniffing fleabag!"

"Your gun is plastic!" With one final yank, Richard tore the gun from his tiny hand as Garfield swiftly came from behind the little boy and picked him up in an extremely tight bear-hug. As Gizmo kept fighting, he held tighter and shut his eyes, although it was rather amusing to see Gizmo's legs desperately flailing about in an attempt to escape his death-grip.

"Let me go!" In one final attempt, he knocked his head backwards as hard as he could and head-butted Garfield's face, who dropped him in response so that he could clutch his now bloody nose.

"Fuck!" With Garfield's newfound concern, Gizmo took the opportunity to run to the edge of the parking lot, pausing only to scoop up some dust that rested inside the pits of the broken gravel on the ground, and throwing it in the face of his original foe, targeting his eyes, before dashing off into the night. As Garfield continued his string of curse words, Richard ran after him. Victor and Garfield did not say anything as they watched (or heard in Victor's case) Richard leave them behind, as they both were now extremely annoyed by the entire situation, dealing with their wounds.

"I can't open my eyes!" Victor rubbed his watery eyes with vigor in an attempt to clear the dust they had obtained. Tears streamed down his cheeks as he grew more frustrated every time he attempted to open his eyes and see. Garfield leaned his head back and gently wiped at his still bleeding nose, it seemed like the blood was gushing out both of his nostrils.

"Shit." He looked at all the blood smeared on his forearms. "What parking lot are we in again?"

"Towers." Victor now opted to cover his face with both hands, refusing to open his eyes in order not to disturb them further.

"Okay." Garfield took a second to think quickly before he led his taller friend out of the parking lot, both of them sulking onto the sidewalk, Garfield acting as his guide. "I know where a water fountain is. It's not far, it's by my English class on this side."

XxX

Richard felt bad about what had happened to his two peers as they were obviously not ready to deal with Gizmo, nor were they ever in the mood, but he'd deal with them later after he caught Gizmo himself, figuring that it was probably the best idea they don't come help him anymore. He now finally understood how children get lost so easily, as well. They are _fast._ He figured he'd catch up to Gizmo in no time, but Gizmo just sped ten feet faster and with more energy than he has ever had in a while, desperate to flee and not be caught. So, he stopped running, and watched Gizmo run around the corner of the street they were on, still full of adrenaline and the desire to get away from him. Resting his hands on his thighs, he knew where he would be running too. And he'd get to him eventually. He was running home. So Richard would calmly walk to his house.

It only took another fifteen minutes. In hindsight, perhaps he should have come more prepared and with a better plan. He had expected to have Gizmo by now, but he could accept the fact that sometimes, things go wrong. His phone buzzed incessantly in his pocket, and he slowly took it from his pocket as he approached the house, he was still tired from the run. It was a text from Garfield. _Where did u go? We went and got Victor's car so we can pick u up. _Huh. He expected them to just go home or something as he had assumed that they were both probably somewhat irritated with him. But it was a nice surprise to see otherwise. _I'm at his house. _He replied back before putting his phone back into his pocket. There was no evidence of Gizmo running around the house, so he checked if he was inside by trudging around and subtly peering through the windows and his backyard. After finding nothing showing his presence, he stood next to the dingy mailbox, debating whether he should knock on the door or find an open window. He was definitely fatigued, he almost wanted to call it quits and maybe just go home. With his head tilted to the now dark sky in exhaustion, he shut his eyes as he tried to think of his next move, residing in the quiet restfulness of the neighborhood surrounding him. He must've looked crazy standing there.

"Do you know how crazy you look! Just saying." Richard's head whipped around to be greeted by Victor and Garfield, both who sat in their car comfortably, Victor drinking water and Garfield with his elbow hanging out of the window, facing him with a small smile.

"Are you guys okay?" Richard called out to them. They seemed to be in better shape.

"Yeah. Dude, my nose only stopped bleeding a minute ago, and Victor had to go get some allergy medicine after he washed his eyes out. Whatever you're about to do, I'm staying in the car." Garfield announced before leaning back further into his seat.

"I'll come look. ONLY LOOK." Victor stepped out of the car and stepped to the curb. "And I'm keeping my distance." Richard nodded in understanding.

"Let's try to get into the backyard." Richard had decided. Gizmo's backyard fence was a flimsy wooden structure that had the standard door lock, in which Richard simply reached over and held open as he pushed the door to widen for him, and stepped inside seemingly careless of the consequences. Victor resolved to not enter the backyard but to innocently peer over to watch what Richard was going to do. The backyard was both not too big and not too small, it was actually not that bad-looking. Half of it was freshly trimmed grass, and the other half was a decorated patio complete with outside furniture, and as Richard cautiously walked around to take a second to admire the chairs, he almost jumped out of his running sneakers when he turned around to see Gizmo himself standing in front of him, (trying) to look formidable with another gun aimed at Richard's head. The teenager smiled at the child condescendingly.

"Is that plastic as well?" Richard joked. Gizmo raised his gun and shot it into the air. The gun was definitely real. However, Richard was a very quick thinker and took the opportunity to tackle the child, who then reacted by trying to shoot him, firing a bullet that went _right_ over his hair. Victor had been watching Richard carefully until this moment. He had not seen Gizmo as he was out of his field of view, but he couldn't help but to stay frozen in shock for a split second as over four shots were fired accompanied with the sounds of Richard and Gizmo struggling. He entered the backyard as quietly and quickly as possible, only wasting a second to look and share a worried gaze with Garfield, who now sat in the car holding up his phone, before turning away and walking to where Richard was. He hoped that meant Garfield would be calling the police.

Richard now was wrestling the little boy, who still clutched the gun like his life depended on it and fired relentlessly, and honestly if someone asked him at this very moment how many times had he been shot, he would've said at least four times. But maybe the adrenaline coursing through his veins kept him from feeling pain, and out of the corner of his eye, he saw Victor staring at the both of them meekly, which was an odd position for him as he was so big and tall, but he knew Victor didn't really know what to do without hurting himself as well. Still, he was help.

"Victor! Come here! Kick the gun out of his hand! Kick the gun out of his hand!" Victor was hot with his nervous sweating, dreading the words Richard had just shouted. He knew what he had come in there to do, but he couldn't help but feel better if he had the power to disappear. If it was even more possible, Gizmo began to thrash even more now, screaming at the top of his lungs, now trying to not only shoot Richard, but Victor as well. Victor dodged every shot, but there is no words that could describe the type of panic he was under when he didn't even know where the bullets landed and if he was even dodging them, but also he was pushing himself to just keep going because it seemed to also be working at not getting him shot. Richard was getting quite irritated and wanted desperately for the fight to end, and so he grabbed both of Gizmo's arms and slammed them into the floor in order to pin him down using his weight. He couldn't even compute the string of insults Gizmo let out of anger as his tiny fingers struggled to clutch the trigger once more and so Victor swiftly kicked it away near the wall of the backyard.

"Let me go birdbrain!" Was the last thing Gizmo shouted before all three turned to face the noise of police sirens and the blue and red lights reflected on the wooden walls of the backyard.

"Get on the ground, NOW!" Garfield now stood by the car as he watched two police men enter the already opened backyard gate with their guns aimed and ready to shoot. He listened nervously to the conversation going on inside where he couldn't see, hoping all will resolve well as he was the one who had called the police and told them about what was going on.

"Which one of you is Gizmo?" One of the officers shouted. Richard and Victor didn't hesitate to point a finger at the younger boy as they surrendered to the officers so they could arrest the correct perpetrator. As soon as Victor and Richard were allowed back up, Richard did not delay to unzip his backpack and take out his personal folder of evidence he had gathered and handed it to the police, completely unfazed by the fact he almost was killed by a child a few minutes ago.

"Aren't you a little young to be a certified detective?"

"Yes, Yes I am."

"Huh." The officer only scrunched his eyebrows in response as he flipped through the folder. "You boys better not make this a habit. It's very dangerous what you just did. I think he'd agree with me." He motioned to Victor, who stood a little ways behind them, looking absolutely spaced out and unresponsive to the entire incident that just occurred.

"He robbed us first." Richard defended.

"But it was a trap. You knew you'd get him." The officer said coolly as he came closer to whisper to the college student. "Listen to me, boy. This isn't fun and games." He warned, letting his words sizzle with effect before speaking to Richard again. "Why don't you guys go to Dickey's hmm? I know it's down the street on your campus and it's almost midnight, but you're already out, yeah? Order something and say it's on me." He gestured to his name tag, _Henson_, it read. "You kids need to cool down, I can tell you're riled up."

XxX

"If we can't find something here, then we can go somewhere else and I'll buy whatever you want to eat." Richard announced in response to Garfield's grimace at the menu choices after he had ordered a plate for himself. He still felt bad about the entire situation somewhat, he had not planned on almost dying or even getting shot. He seriously underestimated Gizmo's abilities, and also put two other lives in danger. Which was the main reason Richard had suggested they go out to eat in an attempt to ease the tension he now had between Garfield and Victor.

"It's fine. They have pretty good options." Garfield walked to the counter. "I'll take a veggie burrito, and he'll take the slices of steak and waffle fries." Garfield had decided, looking also at the menu choice Victor had been eyeing hungrily. "Honestly, I'm still shaking." He turned around to Victor and spoke quietly, gauging his reaction. Victor nodded in agreement.

"Me too, that was _wild_. I didn't know the little guy had it in him."

"You looked so scared when you went inside the backyard, but Richard was so set on catching him!" The duo turned to Richard for his comment, which he did not realize he was also apart of the conversation and his eyebrows jumped at this notion.

"Well he is like three feet tall. I was just trying to get the gun away from him, but I thought he shot me at least three times by the time Victor came." Victor grinned and chuckled.

"I thought he shot me too. In the leg at least. On one hand I wanted Garfield to come help too but on another I was glad he stayed in the car."

"I was **not** planning on dying, I just got off work and my nose got fucked up."

"At least you called the police." Richard chimed in once again. "Hey, what did you do with the Arduino boards?" He nudged Victor.

"I put the ones that weren't stomped on in my car," He chuckled. They had become so deep in conversation at one point he hadn't noticed they all had sat down at a table and already been served their food until Victor had stuffed his face full of steak. Richard grinned at the view of his partners conversing happily among each other, and as they both smiled back at him excitedly, he knew they were officially to be called friends.

XxX

**Lost Dog- Missing since 07/25**

**Missing puppy - 10 month old Golden Retriever**

Garfield took another bite of his tofu sandwich as he read more headlines on the bulletin board.

**Can you find him? - Missing bulldog**

**Help us bring her back- MISSING**

**MISSING PITBULL 1 YEAR OLD**

Garfield had been sitting in front of the bus stop due to take him to work within the next ten minutes, sharing the green seat with an elderly woman holding a bunch of plastic shopping bags. He folded his arms and scrunched his brows as his eyes got lost in the many printed out photos of the innocent-looking dogs that are now gone from their families. Which led to thoughts of getting his own dog, if it wasn't against dorm rules and if he had his own room he didn't have to share. He'd get a puppy because his room was too small to start off with a big dog, maybe a chihuahua. He never understood the hate towards chihuahuas, they could be cute too. He thought even the ugliest animal could be cute. Just in an ugly way. He'd get a dog from the shelter. He pictured all the dog's he saw on his first day. Shelter dogs need love too. But then he remembered they were going missing as well…

He sighed in disappointment. Obviously something was going on. He couldn't tell if it was just the population size of the city that is making the crime of kidnapping dogs more apparent, or if there really is something going on. A serial dog-napper. Garfield looked at some of the descriptions on the impending tree the missing posters were stapled on. Whether the dogs had run away or disappeared out of the blue, some people were offering some serious cash for their animals. His eyebrows jumped at a three-hundred dollar offer. He took another bite of his sandwich as he stared at the offer. At an offer like that, he couldn't help but daydream further. What if he found this dog? It was a medium-sized dog, a middle-aged one according to the poster. Couldn't be far, it has to be around the city. What if he found the dog during his morning run to math class? Or maybe he was down the street going to one of the many restaurants and the dog was chilling in one of the alleys. He'd rescue it and come bring it to their door, and they'd smile at him and hand him the money. He'd pay off his student debt with it. Or buy something nice, he could use new shoes. Or maybe Victor and Richard were there with him. They'd have one-hundred bucks each, and it would do nicely with his paycheck. What if the three of them saved all of these dogs?

He rolled his eyes as he could spot the short blue bus heading for his stop. There was no way he was going through that again. A dog would probably end up clawing his eyeball out.

Unless…?

* * *

_**Author here!**_

_**I AM SO SORRY FOR BEING SO DAMN LATE OKAY BUT I HAVE NOT AND WILL NOT FORGET ABOUT THIS STORY**_

_**Honestly I've been super swamped by my classes. It's hot girl scholar, I might have ADHD sksksk who knows but these grades ain't cutting it. But I'm working on it though.**_

_**So... Garfield may have started something after this chapter, y'all know what comes next. NOW is the time to let me know what characters and team-ups y'all want to see in this story, villains and all titans included. I have a few plots in my head i might want to work with. I'm going to take the time to plan the next few chapters, and hopefully they will be done faster. This chapter took forever, I had a lot of trouble on how I wanted to word it.**_


	5. Chapter 4

Roy thought of himself as a generally cool-headed person. He was never one to get upset over minor, trivial things. Right now, he was just annoyed. He looked on at the girl sharing a table with what seemed to be two twin brothers and all three were discussing the subject of calculus. He had chosen to sit in the common room of their engineering dorms in an attempt to cool down from the situation he had found himself in this morning. Perhaps it was bit awkward that Roy was blatantly just staring at three other students, but he found it was distracting him of his own anger, and also because the huge ceiling-to-floor window of their dorm was on the side he was sitting on and nobody wants that much sunshine in their eyes at roughly seven in the morning.

The sunshine however made the girl's dark skin glow, which only amplified her cheery attitude. The girl had on a big floral bonnet on her head and wore sweatpants and a light shirt. Seeing as this was still morning, her attire wasn't very questionable. She seemed to be mentoring the two brothers. The two brothers were weirdly enthusiastic for the morning as well, which had drawn his attention in the first place to them, and they conversed with each other only in spanish, then would frequently turn back to the girl and speak english, and only because he was listening in on them with no shame, he wished he had passed AP Spanish when he'd taken it in highschool. Roy himself sat on the same couch the girl sat on only sitting a few feet from her, also in pajamas.

"The chain rule is kind of like searching for other rules inside of one problem, not just doing one."

"Que no es nada confuso," One brother said sarcastically.

"But it's true. See, look here." The girl pointed her pencil at an example problem on the paper between them, but the two brothers just sighed loudly and leaned back in their chair in response.

"Estamos muy cansados…" The twins slumped in their chairs and let their heads fall back before nodding to him. "Como el." The trio then turned their attention to Roy, who continued to stare at them unflinchingly. He only blinked back at them in his boredom.

"...Are you okay?" The girl questioned tentatively. He remained honest.

"No."

"Did your roommate kick you out or something?" She pressed on. Roy sighed, wishing his somewhat-annoying roommate chose to stay home last night. Then maybe he wouldn't have found himself in this situation. "Your roommate is Garth right? I have his number if you want me to call him for you." The girl offered.

"Don't. It has nothing to do with him and he wouldn't help either way." His voice was low and he seemed to now stare beyond the girl.

"Okay...well, what's wrong then?" The three were now completely interested in what had soured Roy's mood, and he sat up straighter and took a breath of air before enlightening them with all the details which led to his current behavior.

"There's this girl I was with last night, I brought her back to the dorm-" The two brothers interrupted to coo mockingly at each other, to which Roy merely rolled his eyes. "She slept over at my place, and today, I woke up, and my fucking cellphone is gone." He nervously had begun to comb through his hair again, a tick of his he had yet to get rid of. He didn't even know why he brought out his comb in the first place.

"I'm assuming you've looked everywhere at this point in your dorm." The girl remained sympathetic to his current issue, her brown eyes wide while assessing his situation. "What kind of phone was it?"

"The Iphone eleven Pro." The brothers gasped in unison as the girl's eyebrows furrowed in disbelief.

"The one with three cameras?" Roy nodded in confirmation. "Any idea where she is? I'd track her down ASAP if I were you." Roy had already ruled out the possibility of getting it back as he only remembered her name and nothing else, and the university was quite large. He didn't even know if she lived on campus. As he combed through all he could manage to remember about her the solution to his predicament popped in his brain suddenly, causing him to jolt where he sat on the couch with a new idea.

"She has a class at eight! With a professor named Gould!" He made a motion to whip his phone out of the pocket of his sweatpants but remembered he lacked such an item. "Can you use your phone to go on the class search and look up which class he has right now!?" Surprised by his newfound energy, the girl obliged immediately as the spanish brothers watched in curiosity.

"Intro to archaeology, at Kinsey hall," She chirped, reading the information off the screen. "It's seven thirty, you should probably get going."

"Perfect." He gave his hair one last swipe with the comb before he stood up with a newfound purpose, but paused to take one last look at the girl, who peered up at him inquisitively. "What's your name?" It only seemed proper to at least ask.

"Karen. I'm guessing your name is Roy if you're Garth's roommate." He gave one nod of approval before looking at the brother pair.

"Mar y Montel!" The twins cheerfully chimed in their names.

"Will you help me?" Roy now focused on Karen, who frowned at the offer.

"What do you mean?"

"She stole it, so I know if she sees me she's going to do the best to avoid me. I need you to go get it." Immediately, Karen disapproved of the idea and shook her head, clicking her tongue.

"No, I don't think so. I'm kind of in the middle of-"

"Por favor, Karen?"

"Nos ayudaria a despertar!" The twin brothers pleaded with her. With a roll of her eyes and one final huff of annoyance, she gave in.

"Fine."

XxX

It was seven fifty five in the morning, and Karen had gathered they were already too late when the four of them arrived at Kinsey Hall to recover Roy's cellphone. Not that they had taken long to get ready, she had decided to stay in her morning attire and managed to do her hair in a minute or less, which was no small feat for her. Prepared to apologize to Roy and wish him luck on his quest to find this girl, she turned to him solemnly only for him to shoot his finger across her field of vision and point right next to her high cheekbones.

"There! That's her. The one in the green skirt." He discerned. She turned to eye the alleged criminal who indeed was wearing a green plaid skirt and a simple white crop top, complete with a matching chanel waist chain. _Why do all the asian kids here dress amazing? _She wondered before going over to confront the girl, who was walking fairly quickly to the doors of the lecture hall.

"Hey!" Karen barked, jumping in front of her. The girl raised one eyebrow, taken by surprise.

"Hello?" The girl answered back, making it clear she thought the whole interaction was already odd. In an attempt to ease the tension but failing at it, Karen gave a quick smile before making up a lie to see the phone, as she realized she had not planned what she might say.

"I left my backpack with a friend and my phone was in it. Can I use your phone real quick to call her?" It was a bad lie,and hopefully this girl couldn't read the nervousness in her eyes, but maybe it would do for now. The girl gave one last look to the lecture hall doors and just as Karen thought she might reject her, the girl instead said okay. Both of them stepped off to the side in order to avoid student traffic and Karen watched attentively as the girl unzipped her bag to reveal Roy's alleged cell phone. The girl held it in her hand, going to the appropriate screen to make a call and Karen had to wonder how stupid Roy was to not have a password for his phone. The girl gave a friendly smile before handing it to Karen, who held out her hand excitedly.

Just as she was about to accept the stolen item, the girl pulled her hand back, and Karen looked up to see that she had a startled expression, looking at someone beyond her. Thinking quickly, Karen made an attempt to snatch the phone out of her hand while she was staring off into space, but the girl thought quicker, and clutched the phone against her chest, before picking up her backpack and running inside the lecture hall, in which her professor had just started class.

"GIVE IT BACK, JADE!" Roy ran passed Karen into the lecture hall, set on getting his phone back. The twins, who had been standing next to Roy previously and only observed, burst out laughing as Karen frowned at them.

"Should we stay?" She asked aloud, hoping for the input of the twin brothers.

The lecture hall itself was packed with students settling down and opening their computers to take notes as the professor already had started with the introduction before the lesson. This did not stop Roy from scanning the entire room for the vietnamese girl, or anything green and expensive-looking. His eyes almost popped when he finally spotted her and he had to remember to relax his fist as he was carrying his comb and the teeth of it dug into his angry palm. She sat on the other side of the hall, smack down in the middle of the many rows and students, trying to blend in. He walked briskly towards her, hissing her name, when she was close enough to hear. She still ignored him. He was climbing over other student's bags and hitting his knees on the small tables attached to all the chairs.

"Give it back! Where is it?" Roy seethed. He was two students away from her. Jade had her backpack resting on the floor between her two feet. She clenched them together and pushed the backpack further underneath her seat.

When he finally got to her desk, he instantly brought his fist down her notebook paper, and the noise caused students from all directions to eye the boy standing in the middle of lecture in his pajamas. Roy was so angry he might as well have been as red as his hair. He heard the professor call out to him but Roy ignored him. "WHERE IS IT JADE?" He whispered angrily. Jade only leaned to the side in order to see the powerpoint her professor had provided. In one quick motion, Roy leaned down to snatch her bag and bring it up to his chest to take off with it, but Jade grabbed it and began to pull it towards her, finally earning his attention.

"Sir, you need to take a seat." The professor began to sound more authoritative as now the entire lecture was staring at the two. Roy was busy trying to pry Jade's fingers away from the zippers of the backpack so that he could use them. He kicked Jade in her shin in an attempt to make her loosen her grip, but that only tipped off the professor. "GET OUT." Roy quickly looked over his shoulder to finally address professor Gould, who was not amused at all by the boy.

"She took my-"

"You need to leave immediately, you have disrupted my lecture and I won't tolerate this kind of bullshit like fighting!" The professor launched into a heavy tirade condemning him from his lecture at once. Jade scratched at Roy's arm as he had her by the wrist and managed to pull one hand away from her backpack, and was working on her other hand.

"Just one second-" Roy responded to the professor. The students surrounding Roy began to whisper, telling him to get out as well. Jade kicked at his shins from her seat and in his surprise he let go of her captive wrist, which was just enough time for her to escape and start punching at his other hand. Another student had stood up next to Jade and began to physically push him out of the classroom, causing Roy to trip over another student's backpack, in which he lost his grip on Jade's backpack entirely, who now hugged it to her chest before setting it back down on the floor when Roy was far enough from her. Roy was quietly pleading with the student trying to explain the situation as he tried to stop in his tracks several times to get back to Jade, ignoring the now furious professor who was now shouting at him, but the student was having none of it, and pushed him out of the aisles and towards the door. Turning back only to glare with disgust at Jade, he made a swipe of his hair with his comb before walking out. Only he realized in a split second, he had left his comb on her desk. Jade must have realized this at the same time as she smiled sweetly at him before putting the comb in her backpack as well.

"You're a BI-" The door closed on his face before he had an opportunity to finish his declaration.

XxX

Garfield had been sitting outside of Victor's dorm for the last twenty minutes, recounting the cash he had earned _overnight_. Victor rolled his eyes as he approached his door with his plastic yet expensive key.

"What do you need?" He asked Garfield in a bored tone as they both entered his room. Garfield only responded by holding up the money he just counted with pleasure.

"Four-hundred dollars." He set the money down triumphantly on Victor's desk. Victor was only left in confusion, dropping off his backpack next to his bed.

"Where'd you get that?" It appeared Garfield was ready for his oncoming questions as he settled into the black desk chair that came with the dorm room and balanced his backpack on one knee, unzipping it to reveal several missing dog posters.

"Found some dogs last night." He gave the posters to Victor's curious hand. "These were plastered all over the bus stop near the CVS. It took all night."

"What were you doing finding missing dogs?" Garfield eagerly hopped on his bed ready to give his proposition, now that the appropriate question had been asked.

"Remember the whole Gizmo thing with Richard and how we got free food afterwards as a reward?" Victor nodded, having a pretty good guess of what this was leading too. "Well, that got me thinkin'...I could make money by doing these bounties!" He held a poster up as an example. "This dog took about five hours to find, which is pretty lucky. It was in an alley fighting with a cat, and I got one-fifty for finding him." Another poster. "This pitbull I found with another missing dog, they were both damn near Gotham, I guess they were walking down the main road there two houses were on. They weren't missing for long, but I got three-hundred for them." One more poster. "This last one I found right near the owner's house, she's this old woman who I guess can't see well, the dog was just camping on the side of the house for the last week because there is a hole in her fence. She tried to give me one-hundred for him, and I told her she can keep the money but she insisted I take at least thirty so I could get a ride home." He waited for his reaction with a bright smile.

"When did you get back?" Victor pressed on.

"I started when I got off work and came back around...four in the morning. I'm about to sleep good tonight." Victor winced at the fact.

"It's really smart how you found a way to get money but…" He paused to word his next sentence carefully. "..You do realize you were incredibly lucky to find all those dogs?" Garfield nodded. Richard had expressed the same thought to him a few hours before.

"I don't plan on making it a habit… but also it's a nice little thing to have on the side," He suggested carefully to his older best friend, to which Victor nodded. "There's something weird going on at my job too, I think that's why there's so many missing dogs for some reason around here."

"Doesn't it sound kinda dangerous?" Garfield raised his eyebrows in confusion.

"You don't even have a car. What if something bad happened?" Garfield opened his mouth to defend himself, but Victor kept talking anyway. "All I'm saying you could use a backup plan. Or at least somebody by your side who has those sort of things." Garfield grinned as Victor crossed his arms, staring back at him with raised eyebrows, knowing exactly what he was thinking.

"You'd join me?" Garfield asked elatedly. "I asked Richard and he told me it was a bad idea." Victor scoffed at the image.

"Yeah. It's a bad idea to go alone like how you did, but together, we'll be fine." Victor assured.

XXX

The one thing that had been true of college so far in Kory's perspective was the chance of a new start. Being in a place where nobody knows your name, unlike in highschool where everybody knows not only your name but your general reputation before they even talk to you face-to-face. She was committed to reinventing herself for the better while she spent her undergrad here, already unfollowing most of her high-school peers and following random people on Instagram just because they went to the same college. She could safely say she has the numbers of exactly three new friends here, being her roommate, Garfield, and her classmate Donna, who she was now drinking Starbucks with while walking back to her dorm, as their lecture just ended. She also has been added to numerous party chats and has been talking to boys who had found her on Instagram who also go to Luther University.

It seemed like she was thriving socially, but the reality was that the only friends she hung out with on a regular basis was Donna and Raven, and she hadn't seen Garfield since their second interaction in the kitchen. While she was included in all of those party chats, she still hadn't found anyone to actually party with, and she definitely would not be going alone anymore. Back in her home country, sex seems to not be as big a deal as it is in America, especially regarding women. The first boy she had talked to on Instagram had questioned her views about this, first asking if she was into casual sex. Kory, seeing the question as more of a discussion on personal views and not an invite, had reiterated the fact that she does not have weird hang-ups about it like how American girls seemed too. That first guy immediately sent a unflattering picture of his penis, which not only surprised her in a bad way, but then the guy got mad at her when she rejected the notion of being interested in sleeping with him. She had to block him, and she's been slowly learning the ways of college boys who DM her ever since. Most of them were very forward, usually straight up asking if they could meet and hook up, some got creative with their 'compliments' and told her she was pretty for an african girl or some racist/sexual jab that they think is clever or cute, all of which earn an automatic block and no message back, but she still tried to at least talk to the ones who come off as sweet and polite first.

"You got a new message." Kory first met Donna in their college mathematics lecture and the two instantly clicked over the Dolls Kill crop tops both of them wore. At first it was a relationship built on fashion advice, with Donna giving her tips on what to wear that would compliment both her tan skin and copper-red hair, and Kory giving her advice in return that would help Donna take care of her wavy dark-brown hair, like deep conditioners and such, but soon they realized they enjoyed each other's company as well.

Donna was now holding Kory's phone as they approached Kory's dorm, stopping a few yards from the entrance. Kory was showing her a pinterest board of hers when the message popped up from Instagram. "It's from a guy named Grant. Is he your boyfriend?" Donna cooed playfully. Kory rolled her eyes.

"No. What is the message?"

"He wants to play twenty questions."

"Reply with 'yes.'" The phone dinged with a new notification as soon as Donna sent the response.

"He wants to know if you're a virgin." The two locked eyes and instantly cackled with laughter. "I literally hate guys like that." Donna admitted when the two recovered.

"What do they hope to accomplish?" Kory snickered with a mix of disgust and amusement. Donna shook her head as she read the message again.

"Delusional and hopeless. I've got the perfect reply."

_No, I'm a Taurus :)_

"He left you on read." Donna handed the phone back to Kory so that she could observe herself, and the two giggled amongst themselves once again.

"Do you live here too? What floor do you reside?" Kory asked as she held her student ID up to the door scanner. Donna shook her head as she took another sip of her frappuccino.

"I got into a sorority, it's across campus." Kory gasped.

"It is the extremely hot outside! And you have walked me the entire way here! You should do the hurrying before your drink melts." Donna rolled her eyes.

"It's fine, really. You should wish me more luck and hope I don't see a certain sister bitching about her boyfriend _again _on her phone to her daddy."

"All the luck in the world." Kory sympathetically placed a hand on Donna's shoulder before the two parted ways.

Raven had chosen to spend her free afternoon on her common room floor and kitchen making a cup of green tea and reading a book, despite the warm weather. Housing has not failed on their promise to keep the dorm's air-conditioning flowing, so she learned that she wasted money buying a fan and could have spent it buying more tea to keep her warm.

"Hello Raven!" She looked up to see her bubbly roommate returning from class with a half-finished frappuccino in hand. "May I join you in the cooking? I do not have the left-overs from my last meal." Raven nodded, even giving Kory a tiny smile. It was a fairly good day and she felt much relaxed, even though she wasn't bursting with joy like her roommate obviously was. Kory returned with her tiny kitchen set and what can only be described as her foreign food. The two had come a long way in learning how to put up with one another, and this was an example. Kory cooked happily in silence while Raven continued to read her book. Beforehand, Kory would fill every moment of silence with an unnecessarily awkward comment, but now, they could just enjoy each other's presence without saying a word. Unfortunately this comfortable silence was ruined by the addition of two new people hoping to make a meal as well.

The two boys were chattering about something Raven didn't care to eavesdrop on, but then Kory gasped and exclaimed their presence.

"GARFIELD!" She immediately went over to hug him, causing Raven to at least look above her book to observe the three. Kory hugged him tightly as if she'd known him for years, while this _Garfield_ seemed surprised by the sudden show of affection and hugged her slowly as he realized it was Kory. Then Kory turned to hug his accomplice.

"I am the most sorry, I forgot your name, but I remember you!" She hugged him just as tightly as she did Garfield.

"It's Victor." He reminded her.

Raven kept eyeing the boy who Kory first hugged while still holding the book just over her nose, as she attempted to remember where she had heard that name before. As the realization dawned on her that it was the boy who had asked her out while she was working, she ducked just in time so that her face was blocked by the book she was holding just as he turned her way. But Kory would not let her get off the hook so easily.

"This is my roommate, Raven! We were just doing the cooking." Kory stood by her side and leaned against Raven's chair. With only a deep breath to prepare for the ensuing awkwardness she lifted her head and gave a friendly quick smile at the pair.

"Hope she wasn't too much for you when we called you at the party." Victor quipped, setting down their own pans and food. Raven was momentarily thankful she could give him his full attention instead of Garfield.

"It was fine."

"It looks like she's making it up to you." Garfield stated casually, nodding to whatever food Kory decided to now fry up in their presence, then smiling innocently at her. She might've smiled at him back if she didn't feel so awkward, but was grateful he was choosing to ignore their previous interaction as well.

"What activities have the two of you participated in recently?" Kori gushed, her bright green eyes glowing with kindness. Before exchanging a knowing look with his partner, Garfield remained silent as he allowed Victor to share the story of the two of them catching a criminal and almost getting shot. Kory's expression went from one of friendliness to one of horror. Even Raven had unconsciously set her book down to listen with wide eyes at his story.

"You two were able to catch him?" Kory had heard the ending, but it seemed to shock her that it had a relatively good ending.

"Sounds like you guys could have used a safer strategy." Raven mumbled behind Kory's statements.

"Yeah, but it gave me an idea!" Garfield exclaimed, shuffling on his stool and resting his hands on the table as if to present a business proposal.

"Worrisome." Garfield ignored Raven's unprompted statements and told them of his plan.

"These flyers are all over campus. It's not like I'm gonna continue going after criminals, but for the small minute sort of things…. People reward you for that sort of stuff. Why not?"

XXX

Richard was extremely aware of his privileged position financially whenever he found himself compared to other students. No, FAFSA did not grant him financial aid, but also he had no student debt or loans either. He could thank his dad for that. Nevertheless, he tried to stay humble and down to earth, not judging someone else's financial situations and not saying stupid shit like '_Just work harder and then you'll stop being poor_' when he found himself in a conversation regarding student debt, which unfortunately is very common on college campuses. He also preferred to keep his financial business to himself. He never understood how all the international students flaunted their money in the clothes they bought or the new apple technology they already pre-ordered. Very bold move for them.

Currently, he found himself at the ATM machine next to his bank, a quick stop on the way home from previously visiting CVS across the street. After collecting a couple hundreds dispensed from the machine, he turned on his heel to go on about his business, when he was confronted by a look of absolute anger by a man (who was likely a student after observing his appearance)waiting in line for the next associate who could help him. Richard blushed and wondered if he'd been caught as he stuffed his newly collected money in his wallet then shoved it back into his backpack but then he realized the man wasn't eyeballing him so harshly, rather the wall, he appeared to be thinking of something else.

"Are you going to punch somebody?" Richard said only in jest, if not to get the man to acknowledge his presence and take the cue to move out of the way, as he was blocking Richard's path. Instead of moving out of the way, he took this opportunity to relieve some of his anger and started ranting about how some girl stole his phone or something and now he had to cancel his bank cards because of Google pay, but Richard wasn't keen on paying attention as he immediately started trying to find a way to leave not only the conversation but the area, which was blocked by the line of customers. Eventually, he just gave up and resigned to listening to the man's sad tale.

"I tried to go get it, but she took it to class and got me kicked out. Now I'm getting email notifications on my computer from shopping sites." Richard was ready to answer with the standard, '_That's wild/sucks, man,_' when he was finished when only what could be called an intrusive thought popped up.

"I know someone who could help you," Richard quickly offered, taking out his own phone to text the very person he was speaking of.

"For real?"

"Yeah. He should be able to find her easily," Richard chuckled to himself. "I'm Richard by the way."

"Roy. What do you mean? Who is he?"

"He's my friend. He just said he's free right now if you want to go meet up, but I'll be honest and say you should go file a police report, but it also sounds like you don't want to get the girl in trouble." Roy squinted his eyes suspiciously.

"What makes you say that?"

"You would have filed one already." With no immediate response from Roy, who now sat with this new truth, Richard asked if he still would like to go meet his friend, in which Roy agreed to.

It wasn't that Richard doubted Garfield's ability to go about campus making money from bounties and missing dog flyers- he just wanted to see if Garfield was as serious as he believed himself to be. Although, it was admittedly surprising when Garfield had texted him back yes in all caps, and he thought it would be amusing to watch how Garfield planned on tracking down this girl and getting Roy's phone back, whether it be successful or not. Garfield had told him he'd meet Roy at his dorm, where he was cooking on his kitchen floor while Richard waited for Roy to cancel his bank cards in a chair.

Richard could tell Roy was nervous about going to meet Garfield. Which he could admit himself seemed quite sketchy, especially the fact that it is unknown whether Garfield would actually find the girl, not that Roy needed to know that. Richard tried extracting all the information about Jade's whereabouts he could as the two walked to Garfield's dorm and then to his floor on the elevator, just in case Garfield couldn't crack the case.

"He's cool. We'll get your phone back."

"And my comb."

"Your comb too, both." Richard reassured as they stepped off the elevator and towards the kitchen. He didn't like making such promises, but now that he had roped Roy in, he felt obligated to at least sooth him momentarily, even if they might've been li-

His eyes might as well have popped out of his skull. He wasn't sure if his mouth opened in his disbelief, but for a moment he forgot himself as he walked into the kitchen and _immediately _noticed that Garfield had not been the only one cooking. The two of them slowly approached the table where a girl was sitting. Roy was only following Richard's slow walking pace and Richard was only walking so slowly because he was observing another girl who had her back turned to him, she was cooking with the aid of Victor. Roy frowned and eyed Richard strangely before walking ahead of him as Richard stopped to bluntly ogle at the girl who had not even noticed his presence. Garfield, ignoring the slight awkwardness, stood up from his stool to welcome them with a great smile.

"Hello-"

"HEY!" Both Richard and Kory shouted at each other, almost as soon as Kory turned and made eye contact with him. Being unnecessarily and awkwardly loud, the rest of whom were in the kitchen turned to spectate. They both continued to talk over each other accidently, as they asked each other where they've been and how they were doing, only to become suddenly aware of how they were acting in front of other people and then get quiet almost immediately, smiling and laughing awkwardly while still stealing shy sneaky looks at one another. Richard knew he'd recognize her curly red hair anywhere.

All of this went down only in the course of about two minutes, and suffocating on the clear romantic tension between the two, Garfield merely rolled his eyes and welcomed Roy into the kitchen, bringing the attention back to the issue at hand.

"Richard said you could help me find my comb and my phone?" Roy would have minded small talk first, but he was growing to be a bit desperate.

"Without a doubt. What kind of phone is it?"

"Iphone eleven Pro." Unable to stop himself from wincing at Roy's stolen item, Garfield nevertheless continued to ask him questions as everyone else listened closely as well. It was a good thing Roy knew the name of the thief and could give a description or else his determination would have faltered quite a bit.

"Bet we could get it back by tomorrow afternoon."

"Not tonight?" Roy said dejectedly, which caught Garfield off guard. It was already mid-afternoon. But Garfield didn't want to disappoint him.

"Okay tonight… but probably super late." He settled on. Raven couldn't help but roll her eyes and huff, despite being relatively silent the entire time.

"There is no way you guys think this is a good idea." She stared at Garfield with a deadpan look but was only met by his confused face. "I'm just trying to point out the fact that you're entirely unprepared. You haven't even finished cooking your dinner." She nodded to the pot of vegetarian matter, which was now boiling over, Garfield rushed to tend to it. Victor handed Raven a plate of meatloaf and a now acceptable-looking mush(?) of Kory's food.

"I'm done with dinner. I'll help you out, but it'll have to be tomorrow, Roy. Want a plate?" Victor offered.

"I'll take you all out for Starbucks if you find my phone and comb tonight." Roy accepted Victor's plate but his firm, desperate plea made everyone turn their heads. "One medium drink and one food item."

XXX

If she is ever known to tell a single truth, Jade would say the most relaxed she'll ever be is whenever she is eating. She never liked to rush her food, like that one scene in ratatouille, she liked to really absorb the taste of whatever she ate. And so then she can contemplate about her day and her future plans, also to do some mindless wondering that would put her more at ease. It was a lifelong dream/fantasy of hers to travel the world in expensive hotels and just literally eat all of their food. Right now, she had chosen to spend some of her money to grab a bite of Five Guys at the epicenter of campus, Greenwood Maine. She had never eaten inside of the building, it being like a mini-mall for fast food, so she figured she should treat herself. Each piece of bacon and fry was heaven in her mouth. She didn't even notice the two girls who sat at the table next to her and drowned out their chatter in favor of eating her meal, closing her eyes to experience it on a wholesome level. After eating about half of her bacon sandwich, she dropped a hand to reach down at her side to unzip her backpack, hoping to find a pack of napkins in the tiny front pocket.

"Oh my gosh, there's a roach on your table!" Jade's eyes immediately shot open to look at the girl who had made such a claim, before quickly observing her own tiny table on which her meal sat upon.

"I don't see anything." Jade noted, but standing up and away from the table just in case she still could not see it. She looked at the girl again, who still gazed at her table with a worried expression. The other girl accompanying her was not paying attention, digging through her backpack on the other side of their table. "Where is it?" Jade was only growing more confused and paranoid, but the girl was not looking at her, but still at her table. She flipped her black braid behind her shoulders before standing up herself and shuffling in her high-waisted jeans, raising an eyebrow at her bacon burger.

"I don't know, I didn't see where it went. It's not behind your food, is it?" She tugged at the hem of her crop top nervously. Jade narrowed her eyes in anger at the girl's peculiar behavior before glancing back at her delicious meal in annoyance.

"I have napkins in my bag to kill it." Jade stated sternly, turning around to look behind her to pick up her backpack, extending her hands towards it's straps only to realize her bag was gone. Confused, she stood up and looked over her shoulder at the girl who watched her every move, she looked as if she just got caught. "Did you…" She trailed off, looking around the mostly empty cafeteria. There was only about three other people. All of which who were eating opposite of her end. She looked at the ground, and back at her food, where the alleged roach may or may not be still, and then she heard a quick zip, a sound that almost broke her neck because of how quickly she turned to locate it.

The other girl. Was going through HER backpack. Unashamedly so leaning over the edge of her chair on the other side of the table. She tucked a lock of her red hair behind her ear, once again reaching inside HER backpack, not even realizing that she had been caught. Jade silently stomped over, then kicked her squarely in the face with enough force to push her off of her own chair and land right on her ass, taking her own backpack and whipping it over her shoulder. But the red-head seemed unfazed by this, she stood right back up and towered over Jade with a glare that even caused Jade's own angry face to falter in fear.

"You stole a phone." Wasting no more time to act, Jade shoved the girl into their table as hard as she could before dashing off into the hallway. She could hear the girl get up and take off after her. Whether it would count against her or not, the building was relatively empty- it was now late afternoon/early evening, so she did have room to sprint as fast as she could, but it also meant she couldn't lose herself in a crowd. Pushing herself to run fast enough to turn the corner and not have the girl on her tail as much, she jumped onto a lower staircase that would take her into the lower level of the food court. Luckily it was a big building with lots of exits, so as long as she played her cards right, she could get out of here relatively quickly and unscathed.

She wasn't surprised at Roy's reaction, and it was honestly dumb for her to post a picture of herself on social media enjoying the sun right before getting a meal. She should have figured Roy was still tracking her down. It was a _really _good picture though. Made her skin glow during golden hour. That three-camera phone was really amazing. What surprised her the most though, was how many fucking friends this guy seemed to have, all hell-bent to get his phone back. Her own friends would have just patted her on the back and would say 'Better luck next time.' She figured it was the same case for everybody.

The tall red-head was nowhere to be seen, nor was her pale friend. What a distasteful way to fool her! Jade paused to re-zip her backpack, hoping it's contents were not lost on the way down to the lower-level. She was now hyper-alert of her surroundings, ignoring the stares from the food workers and the few students still sitting and doing homework on their laptops. She looked around every corner she turned carefully and quietly, slowly but surely making her way to the elevators. She figured the girl and possibly Roy was still wondering around the main first floor searching for her, it has lots of places to hide. She went to the higher second-floor. Almost immediately after she stepped off the elevator, she was snatched up by the back of her shirt by a tall, extremely built black man. She made a move to punch him in the face, but he caught it with his own hand easily, forcibly putting her hand down.

"There's no need for violence if you just give us the phone. I'll let you go."

"And the comb." Another man was at his side. They both seemed to be relatively calm, which was dissimilar to Jade's own feelings right now, she was extremely hot.

"I don't have it with me." Jade said desperately, pushing the man's hand off of her arm.

"May we take a look then?" After a moment of consideration, Jade shrugged off her backpack and tossed it to the blonde adversary, who caught it with ease and bent down to look through it.

Jade slowly began to back up and away from the two foes, but the taller one caught her shoulder and gave a stern look at her, as his accomplice searched her bag.

"I don't see it anywhere." He noted out loud.

"I told you I don't have it with me." She made a motion to take her bag back, but he ignored it.

"Then where is it?" She took off running in the other direction before he could finish his line of questioning, darting from hallway to hallway. Her heart was beating so fast, and she wanted to stop, but she had to at least get off the second floor first. But like a sick game of pac-man, another guy stood in the middle of one hallway where she planned to run as the other route was a dead-end. White boy with black hair. Who did he think he was? Some kind of detective? He stood in a way that conveyed authority, although he looked to be about her own age.

"Can you just give it to me or tell us where it is so we can get on with our lives? He hasn't turned you into the campus police so you have nothing major to lose." Jade ran right pass him into one of the common rooms of the second floor, darting behind a chair to catch her breath and to observe where they might go. She rested her head against the chair as she tried to silence her heavy breathing, and resigned to then turning over to rest her head on her knees, eavesdropping on their conversation. Now finally Roy shows up.

"Did you see where she went?" He questioned the others. She couldn't believe she was chased down like this, and while she was just trying to fucking eat! Yeah, she had his phone. In her pocket. And his comb too. She stood up, while Roy still spoke to his little team, and made her way to the railing of the second floor. Below, was a small fountain and she stared at it as Roy took notice of her. He walked with fury, calling her name before she whipped around to face him and tell him to stop walking. In that moment, Roy looked legitimately worried for her safety-she didn't blame him, she proably looked crazy as fuck- but she decided to not let his expression affect her. Jade took out the missing Iphone out of her pocket. Roy was genuinely surprised, in such a way it seemed he was disappointed by this fact.

"You're skirt has pockets?" He asked in a dismal tone. She nodded, smiling widely at him, tucking her free hand inside one of the pockets and twirling for him. Then she nonchalantly tossed both the phone and comb over the rail before taking off, once again. In a futile effort to catch his phone, Roy had sprinted and leaned over the railing, ignoring the fact that Jade was getting away, now that she no longer had what he needed. Garfield, Victor, and Richard were only a few steps away, but watched in horror at what just happened, unsure if they should go after the girl or begin to comfort Roy.

"I got it!" Raven caught both items, and almost dropped them, but held the phone between the palms of her hands, letting the comb drop into the water fountain before sitting on the edge of said fountain and placing the phone into her lap and then fishing the comb out of the water. Giving a thumbs up to Roy, who grinned at her from above, she announced both of Roy's things were now safe.

XXX

Kori rested the ice-pack the Starbucks employees quickly made for her along with her frappuccino and coffee cake onto the side of her face as she waited for her friends to get their orders and return to their claimed table. It felt so cool against her cheek and seemed to cool her entire face, as not only did it ease the pain, but she was really sweaty as far as running around the entire floor of Greenwood Maine, and she hated the feeling of her clothes sticking to her skin like this. Her denim shorts didn't feel so bad, but her white NASA shirt will definitely be washed immediately to avoid any unwanted pit stains. Roy had bought them all Starbucks using his meal plan money before thanking them all for their work and even exchanging numbers or Snapchats with all of them and then deciding to head back to his own dorm to relax.

"Are you okay?" Richard took a seat next to her, noticing the huge bruise starting to develop on her cheek. She tried her hardest not to blush, and instead of looking at him she picked at her coffee cake.

"I will be the okay. Just a bruise," She couldn't help but to at least offer one genuine smile at his concern.

"Raven, you're the only one who's not tired." Victor remarked compared to the four of them, who was at least some degree of exhausted, mostly from all of the chasing. Raven had gotten green matcha tea and a blueberry muffin to eat.

"I thought she'd come back to finish her meal." Raven admitted truthfully. Not that she was particularly motivated for the mission anyway.

"I don't know why he didn't turn her in the first time. Seems like a lot of unnecessary effort on Roy's part." Richard said to no one in particular, but receiving nods of agreement from the table.

"It's because he likes her." Victor noted, with the approval of Raven.

"Do you think he's gonna try something with her again?" Raven asked Victor, who was seated next to her.

"Probably, they've got a lot to talk about though." They all snickered at this fact as Garfield arrived at the table, getting the same frappuccino as Kory except with a grilled cheese sandwich.

"What's funny?" He dropped small, laminated cards onto the table along with his food.

"What's that?" Victor asked in retaliation, nodding to the cards. Garfield motioned to a guy standing who had been going around table to table, selling said cards.

"I bought it off him. Team," He clasped his hands together as if to make a formal announcement. "We succeeded in the first mission, but,' He began to distribute the cards. "We definitely could have handled it better. It's important to learn to communicate with one another. Which is why…" He raised his own card in the air to show them all. "We are going to a paintball tournament." They stared back at him in silence. "What?"

"Who said this is a team?" Richard asked him.

'It was a one-time thing," Raven specified for herself.

"When is it?" Kory said excitedly.

Victor smirked at his ticket. "I'm down. Have you ever played paintball, grass stain?"

Garfield rolled his eyes.

"No. But you don't need to know what you're doing. It's just for fun." He looked around at the table dejectedly. "Kory, you'll come right?" Kory nodded eagerly and turned to face Richard.

"You will come with me, yes?" Richard was somewhat taken aback, by the offer, coming from Kory.

"Yeah," Of course he'd go with her. Garfield grinned at this interaction.

"What about you Rae?" He beamed at her. "You'll come with me too, right?"

"No." Raven was not as smitten as Richard clearly was, not that Garfield expected her to be. He sighed before making his case.

"Come on, Rae,"

"Raven."

"Raven, I bought this ticket for you." He glided over and leaned onto the table next to her, showing her the card. "You should come. It'll be fun. Then you can go back to reading those books you like." Kory nodded in concurrence.

"Please friend Raven? It will be the fun!" She proclaimed. Richard seemed to beg Raven with his own expression, as if he had to go, he thought she should come too. And Victor's oh-so-encouraging smile. Raven rolled her eyes, now flustered.

"Okay." Ignoring the ensuing woops and laughter, Raven picked up her own ticket and read the information on the front.

**All-Day Experience**

**Paintball War**

**Team: Blue**

* * *

_Okay I named Mas y Menos Mar y Montel because I didn't know what else to name them._

_Y'all think this story cannot happen in real life but I just saw a missing dog poster, everywhere on my campus with a 7k dollar reward... so hmm_

_What other villains/criminals do y'all wanna see in this story?_

_Also what's your favorite drink at Starbucks lmao_


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